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Subtraction word problems within 10

Sal solves word problems by subtracting small numbers (numbers 10 or less).

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  • blobby green style avatar for user Joseph AlQersh
    How do you know when to add or subtract in a word problem?
    (8 votes)
    • leaf red style avatar for user Leyard
      When adding and subtracting, you have two signs. adding and subtracting. Obviously in word problems are not going to say add 2+1 or subtract 2-1. Most times in word problems it will say, Sally had 2 apples and Johnathon had six. If Johnathon eats four of his apples how many will there be? What you have to do is subtract, but first you have to add. so add 2+6, and then subtract 4 from your total. In word problems there will be key words. for example, take away, how many more, how many fewer, more, and less. BE CAREFUL: some cases in word problems, more could mean less, and less could mean more.
      (8 votes)

Video transcript

- [Voiceover] There were 10 sharks at the reef. And we see, there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 sharks, just like they told us. Two sharks swam away, I was gonna say ran away, (laughs), they swam away. How many sharks are left? So, let's think about it. There were 10 sharks at the reef and two of them, two of them, swam away, so how many sharks are left? How many sharks are left? Well, what's 10 minus two going to be equal to? Well, we could look up here if we had 10 pictures of sharks and we were to take away, we were to take away one and then two, how many are going to be left? Well, we see we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight. So, 10 minus two, 10 taking away two sharks, the two sharks that swam away, is going to be equal to eight.