Fractional Vocabularies
2 Minutes
Subtraction for kids introduces taking away numbers using everyday examples like buying a cake and sharing fruit. An English maths lesson.
- Meaning of subtraction as taking away numbers
- Calculating change in a bakery using fingers for 10 minus 5
- Solving 15 minus 3 using column subtraction and an apple puzzle
What this lesson teaches
Subtraction is the process of taking away some numbers from other numbers. It helps determine the exact amount or quantity that remains after a certain portion has been removed.
Calculating change with fingers
When working with numbers up to ten, fingers can be used directly to represent values and complete the calculation. For instance, imagine working in a bakery where a customer buys a cake priced at five rupees and pays with a ten-rupee note. Ten fingers can represent the ten rupees given by the customer. Taking away five from ten by counting down through nine, eight, seven, six, and five leaves five fingers standing. This shows that the shopkeeper must return five rupees in change to the customer.
Handling numbers larger than ten
A person only has ten fingers, so subtracting from numbers larger than ten requires a different calculation method. For example, a small boy living in a forest collects fifteen bananas for his breakfast in the morning. While he is not looking, a monkey comes and takes three bananas away from the fifteen bananas. Because fifteen is larger than the number of fingers on two hands, the subtraction fifteen minus three must be worked out using a step-by-step number calculation.
Steps for column calculation
- Separate the problem into sets of numbers, beginning with the digits on the right side.
- Subtract the lower digit from the upper digit in the first set, taking three away from five to get two.
- Look at the remaining digit on the side, where the number one has nothing written beneath it.
- Treat the empty space below the one as zero, meaning one minus zero remains one.
- Put the calculated digits together to reach the final answer of twelve bananas remaining in the boy's hand.
Everyday examples of taking away
- Calculating bakery change by taking the cost of five rupees away from a ten-rupee payment.
- Counting remaining breakfast food after a monkey takes three bananas from a group of fifteen bananas.
- Finding the quantity of fruit left in a house after a mother gives seven apples from a total of eighteen apples to the neighbors.