The ideas in this subtraction lesson are taken from Add & Subtract 3 ebook. Only a few examples of each problem type are shown; you should make more problems of each kind for the student.

Borrowing over zero tens
Free lesson plan from HomeschoolMath.net

When there are no tens to borrow from, one has to borrow one hundred from the hundreds, and make that to be 10 tens. Then, borrow one of those tens to the ones column. Kids will probably need this explained with help of manipulatives. In this lesson, pictures are used instead.

We can't cross out 4 ones because there are no ones.     First we break down one hundred into 10 tens. We still can't subtract the 4 ones.   Then we break down one ten-pillar into 10 ones. That leaves only 9 tens. Now we can subtract. Cross out 1 hundred, 7 tens, and 4 ones. What is left?  _______       →                         →                                         2 hundreds + 9 tens  + 10 ones  300 → 2 hundreds + 10 tens →     3 0 0 1 7 4     10 3 0 0 1 7 4        2 9 10   10 3 0 0 1 7 4 6  The subtractions here illustrate the same process.  First we borrow a hundred  to make 10 tens, then we borrow one ten to make 10 ones.

Example problems

1.  Follow the example.  Break down the minuend (the number you subtract from) as needed.  Draw squares to represent hundreds, sticks to represent tens and dots to represent ones.  Cross out what is needed to illustrate subtraction.

2.  Subtract.

906   469

500   225

404   326

703   536

407   269

3.  Fill in the missing addends, minuends, and subtrahends.  Do any additional calculations in your notebook.

What numbers are missing from the subtractions?  6  0        3  3  1  5  8         3  6  5  6  4  6         5  7  2  4  4    1 0 4       2  0  7

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