Borrowing

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Home : 2002 : January : 21

Borrowing
By Kimberly

We start off using dimes and pennies to subtract and borrow. My 2nd graders love the idea of Mr. Dime's house and Mr. Penny's house. We look at Mr. Penny's house and see that he does not have enough children to do the work
at his house. With 72-48, we see that he has 2 children and needs more. We "walk over" to Mr. Dime's house and ask if we can borrow one of his kids. We have to mark out the 7 and put a 6 so he knows that we borrowed one of his kids...we wouldn't want him to worry! We put his kid in front of our 2 kids and we have 12 (we have already learned earlier in the year about adding dimes

and pennies, so I don't have to say a dime = 10 pennies andd 10 +2 =12). Now we can do those 8 chores. We finish the math problem with ease. I also teach them how to add back up and check the answer to make sure it is right. That is just part of how we subtract and I expect it to be done on every problem.

I hope this is clear. My kids really like this way and I have done it for 3 years now. Of course we do TONS of problems and TONS of modeling! Good luck!