1. “Finding the difference”
Worded problems
“Finding the difference”

2. What is the difference in their heights?
A sheep is 65cm tall
and a chicken is 40cm tall.
What is the difference in their heights?
65 cm
40 cm

3. Follow the 6 steps for worded problems:
Read the question carefully.
Decide which operation is needed.
Write out the number sentence.
Complete the calculation.
Check your answer.
Write the answer out in full.

4. Let’s follow the steps:
Read the question carefully.
A sheep is 65 cm tall, a chicken is 40 cm tall. What is the difference in their heights?
What operation do we need to use?
Subtraction.
What is our number sentence?
65cm – 40cm =

5. Complete our calculation.
We will use a number line to help us:
65cm cm =
25cm
10cm
+ 10cm
+ 5cm =
25cm 10 10 5
40cm
50cm
60cm
65cm

6. Check our answer.
Check using the inverse operation. What is the inverse of subtraction?
Addition
So if:
65cm – 40cm = 25cm
we should find that:
40cm + 25cm = 65cm.

7. Let’s check using the number line:
40cm + 25cm =
65cm
+ 10
+ 10
+ 5
40cm
50cm
60cm
65cm

8. Write out our answer. 65cm – 40cm = 25cm
The difference between the height of the sheep and the chicken is 25cm.

9. Well done!