Taking away
Imagine a plate. There are six cookies on it. You take two and eat them. How many cookies are left on the plate?
six cookies, take two away, four are left
What we just did is called subtraction. We removed some from the group.
The minus sign
When we take something away, we use the sign –, called minus:
- 6 – 2 reads "six minus two"
- it means: take six and remove two
Counting on fingers
Hold up five fingers. Now bend two of them down. How many are still up? Three.
5 – 2 = 3.
The trick — counting back
For 6 – 2 say "six" and count back two steps: "five, four". The answer is four.
Words
- minus — the sign –
- subtract — take one number away from another
- difference — the result of subtraction (5 – 2 = 3; three is the difference)
Examples within 10
- 5 – 1 = 4
- 7 – 3 = 4
- 9 – 4 = 5
- 10 – 5 = 5
- 4 – 4 = 0
The last one shows something interesting — when we take everything away, we are left with zero. That means "there's nothing there".
Try it yourself
In the Cross out exercise you click on the items you want to remove. You'll learn to subtract visually.
In Addition and subtraction, pick the "up to 10" level and you'll subtract numbers.
When you've got addition and subtraction, try Simple problems.