Making Ten to Subtract

One tricky strategy that second graders have been working on is the Making Ten to Subtract strategy. In this strategy, students will break about the second number (the subtrahend) in a Math problem by thinking about what you would take away from the first number (minuend) to make 10. Then we would continue to subtract what is left. We practiced this strategy with number lines and graphic organizers. Splitting apart numbers in this way to subtract helps students build their Math fluency and helps with solving tricky Math problems with Mental Math.