Use this lesson to teach your students how to determine if they should use addition, subtraction, or both operations to solve a word problem by following four simple steps.

Help your students subtract with confidence by sharing two different strategies. Use this lesson to build on students’ understanding of subtraction and to evaluate this key skill.

Emphasize student understanding and reasoning! This lesson plan helps learners solve story problems using sense-making strategies. This can be used alongside the lesson Solving Word Problems or as a stand-alone lesson.