Description
What our Subtraction lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Subtraction introduces the basics of subtraction to young students. This interactive lesson demonstrates how to use subtraction within 20 (or 100), solve word problems using subtraction, and work with subtraction equations. At the end of the lesson, students will be able to use subtraction within 20 (or 100), solve word problems using subtraction, and work with subtraction equations. This lesson is for students in 1st grade and 2nd grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the blue box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand.
Options for Lesson
Included with this lesson is an “Options for Lesson” section that lists a number of suggestions for activities to add to the lesson or substitutions for the ones already in the lesson. One optional addition to this lesson is to use additional resources for higher number and more practice worksheets. If you have students who already understand basic subtraction, begin the lesson with Step 13 (as outlined in the “Classroom Procedure” section of the lesson). For the lesson activity, you can use spinners instead of flash cards. Finally, for an additional activity, you could have your students make up subtraction sentences without using flash cards.
Teacher Notes
The teacher notes page includes a paragraph with additional guidelines and things to think about as you begin to plan your lesson. This page also includes lines that you can use to add your own notes as you’re preparing for this lesson.
SUBTRACTION LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
Subtraction
The Subtraction lesson plan includes one content page. Subtraction is finding the difference between two numbers by taking one number away from another number. The difference is the answer to a subtraction problem. If you count backwards (5, 4, 3, 2, 1), you are actually subtracting one from the previous number.
The lesson includes a picture of seven oranges. If you take away (or subtract) three of the oranges, how many are left? There are four left, so four is the difference between seven and three. This is subtraction! Written as a number sentence, it’s 7 – 3 = 4. You can also say “seven minus four equals three”.
The different numbers in subtraction problems have names. The first number is the minuend, the second number is the subtrahend, and the answer is the difference.
It’s very helpful to memorize subtraction facts with numbers up to 20. It can also be helpful to create Fact Families with addition, which will help you subtract as well. You can make Fact Families with any numbers. For example, let’s make a Fact Family with the number 19. With 19, you can use 16 and 3, add them together, and then subtract to get the following Fact Family: 16 + 3 = 19, 3 + 16 = 19, 19 – 3 = 16, and 19 – 16 = 3. The lesson includes a few more examples of Fact Families for students to study.
SUBTRACTION LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Subtraction lesson plan includes six worksheets: four activity worksheets and two homework assignments. You can refer to the guide on the classroom procedure page to determine when to hand out each worksheet.
ACTIVITY WORKSHEET 1
The first activity worksheet asks students to use counters to create number sentences, ensuring that the second number (subtrahend) is less than the first number (minuend). They will then solve each number sentence.
ACTIVITY WORKSHEET 2
The second activity worksheet asks students to use counters to find the missing subtrahend in each number sentence.
ACTIVITY WORKSHEET 3
The third activity worksheet asks students to create number sentences using flash cards. They will then solve each number sentence.
WORD PROBLEMS ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
For the unnumbered activity worksheet, students will solve six word problems that include subtraction.
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT 1
The first homework assignment asks students to first answer a few questions about the lesson material. Students will also find the difference for each of the subtraction problems on the worksheet.
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT 2
The second homework assignment asks students to write the missing subtrahend for each subtraction problem.
Worksheet Answer Keys
This lesson plan includes answer keys for activity worksheet 2, the unnumbered activity worksheet, homework assignment 1, and homework assignment 2. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
