From facts to borrowing
- Within 10 and 20. Subtraction facts, like 13 – 5, a whole sheet at a time.
- Two digits, no regrouping. Every top digit is big enough: subtract the ones, then the tens.
- Two digits with regrouping. When the top ones digit is smaller, take one ten and make ten more ones.
- Three digits. The same steps across tens and hundreds.
Check by adding
Every subtraction has an addition hiding in it: if 72 – 38 = 34, then 34 + 38 = 72. Children who check their answers this way catch their own mistakes and learn how the two operations fit together. The addition worksheetsuse the same levels.
In the New Zealand Curriculum
- First 6 monthsSubtraction facts to 5, with words such as take away, minus and separate.
- Year 1Subtraction facts related to the addition facts to 10, and finding differences by counting.
- Year 2Splitting numbers into tens and ones to subtract, and fill-in-the-blank number sentences.
- Years 3–4Subtracting within 1,000, then with 2-, 3- and 4-digit numbers, using rounding to check.
Facts within 10 and 20 are subtraction basic facts in New Zealand classrooms. In Year 2, children subtract tens and ones separately, so 74 – 21 is 70 – 20 and 4 – 1. Never regrouping, set out in a row, suits that kind of mental working.
Problems that need regrouping sit with the bigger numbers of Years 3 and 4, where the stacked layout helps. The maker stops at three digits, so four-digit subtraction needs another source.
Summarised in our own words from the New Zealand Curriculum: Mathematics and Statistics, Years 0–8 (in effect from 2025), and the Ministry of Education’s year-by-year guide for parents and whānau.
