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Subtraction Word Problems
Overview
Subtraction helps us to find the difference. Subtraction can tell us how many are left.
Subtraction is easy to do! Subtraction is the opposite of addition.
We can use subtraction in word, or story, problems.
Subtraction skills can help us solve correctly!
For example:
Let’s take a look at the example above.
We are subtracting because some of the dolphins swim away.
There are 10 dolphins to start with and 5 swim away.
We need to figure out how many are left.
We can do this by subtracting 10 – 5 to get our answer.
We write it like this:
10 – 5 = 5
There are 5 dolphins left!
Let’s look at another problem!
Let’s take a look at the example above.
We are subtracting because some of the butterflies fly away.
There are 11 butterflies to start with and 4 fly away.
We need to figure out how many are left.
We can do this by subtracting 11 – 4 to get our answer.
We write it like this:
11 – 4 = 7
There are 7 butterflies left!
Amazing work! Let’s look at another problem together.
This time we will subtract strawberries.
We are SUBTRACTING to find out how many are left because some have been eaten.
We can see that there were nine strawberries to start with. Six of them have been eaten
When we SUBTRACT 9 minus 6, we have 3 left.
We say: NINE minus SIX equals THREE.
We write it like this:
9 – 6 = 3
Let’s try one more together!
This time we will subtract donuts.
We are SUBTRACTING to find out how many are left because some have been eaten.
We can see that there were ten donuts to start with. Six of them have been eaten
When we SUBTRACT 10 minus 6, we have 4 left.
We say: TEN minus SIX equals FOUR.
We write it like this:
10 – 6 = 4
There are many different words that are used to describe subtraction. For example, we can find out HOW MANY MORE there are or how many ARE LEFT. Here are several other examples:
Knowing these keywords will help you understand that in order to solve some problems, you must subtract. You might see these keywords in math story problems.
There are many strategies you can use to help you subtract correctly. We will learn about these in other lessons.
Now, let’s practice!
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