Subtraction Worksheets

Five minute subtraction frenzies are timed practice charts that help students develop subtraction fact recall speed. These charts are similar to the addition and multiplication frenzy charts, but due to the nature of how subtraction works, we could not focus solely on the single digit fact families. For example, you might get questions like 18 - 4 = 14. You also have to be aware that you must subtract the row number from the column number to get a positive number (or zero). Other than that, they should be a nice way to practice some mental subtraction. As with most of these pages, please only use them as a timed activity with students who will experience success. If a student does not have the necessary skills to complete a frenzy in under five minutes, you may need to take a different approach to how you deliver this page. For all others, students should be able to complete this page in under five minutes with a 98% or greater accuracy and improve their time as they get more practice.

Most of the subtraction tables in this section are meant to be used as a reference for students learning their subtraction facts. After a while, most students will remember the facts and recall them easily when completing math problems.

Subtracting single-digit facts is a skill that students generally learn after or while they are learning single-digit addition facts. The subtraction worksheets in this section are meant to be used for practice, testing or with teacher guidance. They will not teach students how to subtract or what the connection is between addition and subtraction; for that, students require a teacher or parent.

Some students might find it easier to start with subtraction facts with minuends (the first number) limited to 9 or lower. This way, they don't need to count across 10 eliminating that extra pesky digit... for now.

In relation to addition facts, the following worksheets cover the facts from 0 to 9, and the worksheets after that cover the addition facts from 1 to 9. The minuends are the amounts to be subtracted from, so a minuend of 18 means that both the subtrahend (the amount being subtracted) and the difference will be 9. The worksheets marked with an asterisk (*) include all possible questions in a random order on each version of the worksheet.

Sometimes students just need to reinforce a single number at a time which is where these worksheets come in. There are three sets of worksheets in this section, each with a different number of questions. The last set is the most interesting as there are no questions repeated. Eleven and Twelve have been included as they are essentially subtracting by 10 and 1 or 2 more.

The make ten subtraction strategy involves "spliting" the subtrahend (amount being subtracted) into two parts. The first part should be the exact amount that will reduce the minuend (the first number) to ten (or multiple of ten as the case may be) and the second part is the leftover amount. The strategy helps students internalize a mental strategy for subtracting across tens. For example, with the question 15 - 9, students first recognize that they need to subtract 5 to get 10, so they split the 9 into 5 and 4. Subtracting 5 from 15 results in 10 and subtracting 4 more results in 6, so 15 - 9 = 6. This strategy can be used any time students need to subtract "over" a multiple of ten and there are many worksheets in this section to practice it. For example, subtracting 84 - 8, students recognize that they must subtract 4 from 84 to get 80 which leaves 4 more to subtract from 80 to get 76.

Try teaching a mental math strategy for subtraction called counting up. Here is how it is done:

Start with the second number (the subtrahend) and count up by tens until you find the closest value to the first number (the minuend). Keep track of how many tens you counted. Add or subtract a single digit number to get the minuend exactly then adjust the tens by that amount. For the question, 84 - 35, start at 35, and count, 45, 55, 65, 75, 85 (five tens) and one down to get 84. Five tens minus one is 49. For the question 65 - 22, start at 22 and count, 32, 42, 52, 62 (four tens) and three up to get 65. Four tens and three is 43. The previous examples used two-digit numbers, but the strategy can swiftly be modified for larger numbers. How far can your students go with it? Here is an example with three-digit numbers:

Let's use the question 927 - 648. First, count up by hundreds to 948 (that's 300). Then count down by tens to 928 (that's -20). Finally count down by ones to 927 (that's one). 300 - 20 - 1 = 279. That's almost easier than adding!

The multi-digit or long subtraction worksheets in the first part of this section are classic long subtraction worksheets with randomly generated numbers. Regrouping should be necessary about half of the time. Versions with ALL regrouping and NO regrouping follow. If you would like to see numbers with thousands separators, look a little further down and choose the appropriate version for your location.

For students who need a little extra help with lining things up, these long subtraction worksheets have the digits spaced farther apart on a grid. The answer keys also show the carrying values to help diagnose where things went wrong (but hopefully they won't).

The next long subtraction worksheets include questions that require regrouping at every step. They can be frustrating and difficult for students who are not familiar with the concept of subtraction. Try showing them with base ten blocks how regrouping works.

Some students require a little extra help when learning to subtract large numbers. These subtraction worksheets include questions where the regrouping step has been eliminated. This might help students learn a subtraction algorithm before learning about regrouping.

Why horizontal subtraction worksheets? Students can show their understanding of place value and number sense if they do not already have the numbers lined up. Vertical subtraction is often learned based on a student's understanding of single-digit subtraction, but looking at the whole number is lost in the algorithm.

Many students in English-speaking countries are used to seeing numbers with comma-separated thousands.

Space-separated thousands are becoming more widely used, including in the United States. Canadian students have used both comma separated and space separated thousands for many years.

Even though period separated thousands are not common in the English-speaking world, we provide these for our friends in other countries who may find them useful.

Generally, a student would not regroup to determine the complements of 10, 100, 1000, etc. One strategy that could be used is as follows: working from left to right, a student would take each digit in the subtrahend and figure out its nines complement. If the digit was 3, for example, the nines complement of 3 is 6. For the last digit (ones), the student would use the tens complement. For example, a typical question is 1000 - 456. The nines complement of 4 is 5, the nines complement of 5 is 4 and the tens complement of 6 is 4. Putting it all together, the student would get 5 4 4 or 544 = 1000 - 456.

A similar strategy is employed with the next worksheets except students must adapt to calculating the largest place value number.

These worksheets are meant to give students practice dealing with 0's in the middles of subtraction questions. Whether using pencil and paper or mental arithmetic, it is always a good idea to make sure students know what to do when they encounter zeros.

Subtracting numbers in number systems other than decimal numbers including binary, quaternary, octal, duodecimal and hexadecimal numbers.