Addition and subtraction word problems forest field trip MightyOwl Math 1 st Grade

hello this is mighty owl let's go on field trip to the forest do you think we can use our addition and subtraction skills in the wilderness well come with me and i'll show you there are so many different animals to see out here look over there there are seven red squirrels and four grey squirrels in tree how many squirrels are there in total well let's use our mighty math skills to write an addition sentence an addition sentence has three or more numbers plus sign and an equal sign we read math sentence left to right just like normal reading but instead of words we say the numbers for example two plus two equals four and that's an addition sentence well let's look at the squirrels and make an addition sentence about them we know two of the numbers already seven and four and because we want to know how many there are in total we need plus sign to show we're adding them together seven plus four now we need an equal sign and one more number to complete the addition sentence seven plus four equals if we don't know what the third number is yet we can write question mark in its place now our addition sentence looks like this seven plus four equals question mark and we can use the picture of the squirrels to help us we already know there are seven red squirrels so we don't have to count them again we're gonna start at the number seven and count up from there to add four more gray squirrels eight nine ten eleven now we know that there are eleven squirrels in total and we can replace the question mark from our addition sentence with eleven and our final addition sentence looks like this seven plus four equals eleven now let's read it out loud together seven plus four equals eleven and you just made an addition sentence in the forest nice job let's see what other animals we can find wow look in the river twelve fish but four of them just swam away how many are left okay so there were 12 fish when we first spotted them and now there are fewer fish because some of them swam away this time we'll need to make subtraction sentence subtraction sentence has three or more numbers minus sign and an equal sign for example 4 minus 2 equals 2 is subtraction sentence we often use subtraction sentences to show that number is getting smaller in our story we had 12 fish but then that number got smaller so 12 is the first number in our subtraction sentence of those 12 fish four of them swim away so we need minus sign and the number four then we put the equal sign but because we don't know the third number we can put question mark in its place just like before so now our subtraction sentence looks like this 12 minus 4 equals what we can find the answer by counting how many fish are left in the river one two three four five six seven eight now we can replace the question mark with the number eight and the final subtraction sentence is 12 minus 4 equals 8. well done we're having so much fun making math sentences in the forest let's try to do one more wow what's that crawling over there on the log beetles there are 15 beetles marching in line some of them just flew away and now there are only 10 left how many of them flew away do you think we should make an addition sentence or subtraction sentence we can decide by asking ourselves did the number of beetles get bigger or smaller we can see it got smaller and so that means we need to make subtraction sentence the number of beetles was 15 but then it got smaller so the first number should be 15 followed by the minus sign however we don't know the next number we have the number 10 but that's just how many beetles are still here that's the answer so what can we do just like before we can use question mark in its place next we write the equal sign and the number of beetles that are left ten so let's read our subtraction sentence fifteen minus what number equals ten let's think back to when there were fifteen beetles and let's take them away one by one until there are only 10 left to show that we're taking away we can simply cross out beetle now let's count backwards until you get to 10. 13 12 ten and there are ten left and how many were taken away five now we know that the missing number in our subtraction sentence is five fifteen minus five equals ten we did it we made another subtraction sentence let's review what we learned today on our math field trip in the forest when putting two numbers together like the seven red squirrels and the four grey squirrels we can represent this with an addition sentence we write the number of the first group plus sign the number of the second group an equal sign and the number of both groups together when number gets smaller like the fish in the river we can show this with subtraction sentence first we write the total number minus sign how many were taken away an equal sign and then how many were left if you don't know number you can just write question mark in its place and when you're ready to find out what the missing number is you can use pictures to help you count up when adding or cross out when subtracting great work today can't wait to go on more mighty field trips with you