Finger Subtraction The Easy Way
Two methods
Subtraction can be thought of as ‘take away’ or ‘difference.’ Both models are essential to a complete understanding of subtraction. Have your child practice both ways of thinking of subtraction using these finger subtraction methods.
We’ll use 11 – 3 for our examples.
Take Away method
Start with a closed fist and say “11.” Then, lifting one more finger each time, count “10, 9, 8.” Each time you lift a finger and count down, you are taking one more away from the original number.
When your child sees 3 fingers raised, the counting stops. They now see that taking 3 away from 11 leaves 8.
Difference method
This uses counting on, much as we did for Easy Way Finger Addition. What we are doing is finding out which number weneedtoaddto3toget11.
Have your child make a closed fist and say “3.” Then, lifting one more finger each time, count “4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.” When your child says 11, there are 8 fingers raised. That shows that the difference between 3and11is8!