It’s Your Turn!

Practice!

Goal: Use counters and the counting-back strategy.

The student in our video used counters instead of their fingers. You can always use your fingers when you count, but it’s a good idea to try other ways, to see which one you like best! Let’s try using counters to count back just like in the video. The student counted back 9 - 4 to find the difference. Let’s try 9 - 5 next. We know the whole is 9, so let’s get out 9 counters of any color.

We are taking 5 away. That means we are going to count back 5 times and take away 5 counters. Starting with the last counter in the row, click the ten frame to take them away. Don’t forget to count back out loud as you take the counters away!

9 - 5 = 4. This is correct because the student found out that 9 - 4 = 5! Remember, we can switch the places of the 4 and 5 because they are each a part of the whole.

Use your counters and the page below to find the difference for the subtraction sentences below. Be ready to answer questions about the differences you found!