Choose methods for add/subt problems - Teaching Presentation - Year 4

This presentation provides three days of teaching that cover the objectives:

• Choose appropriate methods to solve addition and subtraction problems
  It includes starter activities, whole class teaching, group activities, practice sheets and mastery questions. It can be used on a variety of interactive whiteboards.

Day 1 Teaching
Write +29, –19, +195, –203, +1998, –999. Point to each. Children discuss how to add/subtract these numbers. After each discussion, model drawing an empty number line (ENL) jotting to show the addition/subtraction to/from 6745, e.g. a jump back of 200, then hop forward of 5 to subtract 195.

Day 2 Teaching
Explain that children now have the skills to choose appropriate method for any addition/subtraction! Some are written and some are mental methods. Display ‘Mental or written?’ calculations (see resources). Ask children to spot an addition or subtraction which they would do mentally. Ring it in blue. Ring in red for a written method. Discuss any disputes!

Day 3 Teaching
Give each pair of children 3 word problems (see resources). Ask them to read the first and discuss what they need to do to the numbers in the problem to solve it. They then write + or – beside it. Ask pairs to say how they decided which operation to use. Solve this problem, and then repeat for the other 2.

This teaching is part of Hamilton’s Year 4 Addition and Subtraction block. Each Hamilton maths block contains a complete set of planning and resources to teach a term’s worth of objectives for one of the National Curriculum for England’s maths areas.