Missing Subtraction Worksheets
Every secondary level math teacher, at some point in their career, finds themselves either teaching a class or a unit on prealgebra. How you help students make the leap from basic operations to finding unknown elements within expressions and equation, is the first thing you will ponder. This topic is a great primer for such a task. Students need to determine the missing part of an equation with a fixed operator. In this case the operator is always subtraction. We would encourage you to work with a fixed operator, whether it is this or addition. This helps students see basic arrangement in multiple versions without changing up the entire ecosystem on them. These worksheets and lessons help students take a baby step toward algebra by teaching them how to find missing values in subtraction problems.
Aligned Standard: Related to 2.NBT.B.7
- Get Hooked! Lesson- One of my all time favorite clips.
- Moo! Guided Lesson - All levels of difficulty are challenged here.
- Zebra Guided Lesson Explanation - Each successive problem takes longer to explain.
- Horizontal Mystery Differences - All missing answers are left of the equals sign.
- Double Digit Vertical - Fill in all the missing eggs!
- Answer Keys - These are for all the unlocked materials above.
Two Digit Practice Sheets
Each sheet has a subtle adjustment made to it to help echo the skill.
- Mystery Differences 2 - Find the missing digit that will correctly complete the problem.
- Vertical Subtraction - Write the missing digits on the lines to solve.
- Box Subtraction - Following the same strategy we used in problem #1, we can rewrite the equation.
- Cloud Differences - Work through all of these problems.
Triple Digit Worksheets
They are all in a vertical orientation. This is great way to run a quick review for your class.
- Version 1 - Place the missing numbers in the boxes to solve the following subtraction problems.
- Version 2 - We can break this problem into 2 steps.
- Version 3 - Evaluate the ones column.
- Version 4 - Rewrite the problem with what we know now and evaluate the tens column.
How This Skill Heads Us Towards Algebra
When students are presented with an equation that is missing a digit it is the first step towards working with algebra. If you think of that that missing digit as a variable, say (x), you can see that we are exactly doing that. In fact, this is a topic that is filled with algebra problems that just have a fixed operator. We are working to determine the subtrahend or minuend that most be present to make these equations true. Since you are stuck with the problem and you have to solve it, you need to figure out a way to find the solution to the problem. Before we start with understanding how missing digits and algebra connect in any way. Let's find out what is a missing digit subtraction problem. A missing digit subtraction problem is an equation that doesn't have all the values present for the solving or satisfying the equation.
There are normally five parts to all basic subtraction equations.
Minuend (minus sign) Subtrahend (equal sign) Difference.
The minuend is the value that we are taking away from. The subtrahend defines how much will be taken away from the minuend. The difference is the result of that being taken away. The subtraction symbol indicates that this a subtraction operation and the equal sign tells us that the operation taking place and the difference have the same value.
This skeleton can be used to create problems such as: 11 - 3 = 8
The missing subtraction problems would complicate such an equation and adjust them to be either: __ - 3 = 8 or 11 - __ = 8.
The above is the example of a missing digit problem. Now in the given number, what you have to do is reform the above problem in a way that answers to the problem, and the given complete number lies together and the other with a missing digit on the other side. Now subtract each digit of the problem to find the get the missing digit answer.