With Christmas coming up very soon this is the final set of pages in our mini series on subtraction for year 2, which looks at subtracting a pair of multiples of 100. They show how important it is for children to learn their number bonds to 10, that is, they should know off by heart [...]

Sometimes the easiest way to carry out a subtraction question is to do it by counting up, or adding on, from the smaller number to the larger number. This is often the case when the two numbers are close to each other but either side of the hundreds boundary. For example, 102 – 97 can [...]

A much harder set of questions on these four worksheets. This time we are looking at taking away 19 from 2-digit numbers. Usually the easiest way to do this is to subtract 20 and then add one to the answer. If the number has a 9 in the units it is probably easier to just [...]

When subtracting 11 from a number often the easiest way is to subtract 10 and then count back one. Some people prefer to subtract the unit first and then the ten. The same can be said for subtracting 21: subtract 20 and count back one. These pages are good practice for children just getting to [...]

Here we have an excellent set of four maths worksheets introducing subtraction of both tens and units. There is no ‘decomposition’ involved; in other words the units to be taken away are always smaller than or equal to the units of the number. Interestingly, most adults who do this ‘in their heads’ start by taking [...]

These four worksheets are aimed at giving children practice at subtracting multiples of ten from 100. The aim of this is that they learn the answers off by heart, so they no longer have to count on or back. As there only a short number of possibilities it is important for children to know these [...]

Here we have a set of pages where the subtraction number sentence need to be completed. There are several different strategies which can be used to do this, depending on which number is missing. For example: in the number sentence 16 – ? = 7 the best way to do this is to count back [...]

One of the easiest ways of subtracting nine from a number is to subtract ten and then add one. This is a simple mental arithmetic ‘trick’ which many children do not pick up on and is much quicker than counting back nine using fingers etc. Probably the only time this method is not the most [...]

Here we have a set of worksheets which looks at subtraction of whole tens. Once children have become confident with counting forwards and backwards in ones and twos the next step is to be able to count in tens. Be careful, however, as some children can rote learn this with no understanding of how large [...]

What’s new: Subtract from multiples of 10.