Daily Academy

🏔️ Math Mountain · Number

Subtraction in kindergarten to grade 5

Taking away, including borrowing across place values. Daily Academy tracks it as its own skill, separately from the 9 others in math mountain, so it can never be averaged away by a subject score.

Check it tonight

“What’s 42 − 17?” Then: “what did you borrow, and what was it worth?”

What to watch for

A correct answer with no explanation of the borrow. The procedure is memorised and will fail at three digits.

Real subtraction questions from the library

5 activities currently target this skill. These are actual questions, shown at the difficulty they are served at, with the explanation a child sees after answering.

  • Difficulty 0.9 — mid grade 0

    6 − 3 = ?

    Hint shown after a miss: Count backwards from 6 three times: five, four, three.

    Explanation: 6 − 3 = 3. Counting backwards is one way; knowing that 3 and 3 make 6 is a faster one.

  • Difficulty 0.9 — mid grade 0

    You have 4 crayons and you give them all away.

    How many crayons do you have left?

    Hint shown after a miss: All of them means every single one.

    Explanation: None at all — zero. Zero is a real number, and it is what "nothing left" is called.

  • Difficulty 1.5 — mid grade 1

    12 − 5 = ?

    Hint shown after a miss: Go back to 10 first. That uses two of the five.

    Explanation: 12 − 5 = 7. Dropping to 10 uses 2, and taking the last 3 away from 10 leaves 7.

Common questions

How do I know if my child has subtraction secure?

“What’s 42 − 17?” Then: “what did you borrow, and what was it worth?” A correct answer with no explanation of the borrow. The procedure is memorised and will fail at three digits.

Which grade is subtraction taught in?

It appears in both. Daily Academy does not gate skills by year group — a child is placed on a continuous difficulty scale during a five-minute intake, and subtraction is then served at whatever level they are actually at, adjusted separately from every other skill.

See where your child stands on subtraction

A five-minute intake places them on a continuous scale, and the skill map shows every skill separately from the first week. The daily mission is free.