Year 6 · Arithmetic skills · Skill 1B

Skill 1B: Subtracting 10, 100 and 1,000

Take away 10, 100 or 1,000, including exchanges and subtracting from 100 and 1,000.

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Each file is an editable Word document (.docx) with 25 questions in five columns. It opens in Word, Google Docs, Pages and LibreOffice, so you can change questions or add working space before printing.

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Worked examples

Taking away 10, 100 or 1,000 usually changes one digit. The tricky cases are a 0 in that column, and taking a number away from 100, 1,000 or 10,000.

Example 1

Subtracting 100

6,347 − 100

We are taking away 100, which is 1 hundred. Look at the hundreds column.
Place value table
Th H T O
Start 6 3 4 7
The hundreds digit goes down by 1: 3 − 1 = 2. The other digits do not change.
Place value table
Th H T O
Start 6 3 4 7
Take away 100 6 2 4 7
So 6,347 − 100 = 6,247.

Place value table
	Th	H	T	O
Start	6	3	4	7

Place value table
	Th	H	T	O
Start	6	3	4	7
Take away 100	6	2	4	7

Answer: 6,247

Example 2

Subtracting when the digit is 0

5,030 − 100

The hundreds digit is 0, so there are no hundreds to take away. We need to exchange.
Place value table
Th H T O
Start 5 0 3 0
Exchange 1 thousand for 10 hundreds. The thousands digit becomes 4 and the hundreds digit becomes 10. Now take away 1 hundred: 10 − 1 = 9.
Place value table
Th H T O
Start 5 0 3 0
Take away 100 4 9 3 0
So 5,030 − 100 = 4,930.

Place value table
	Th	H	T	O
Start	5	0	3	0

Place value table
	Th	H	T	O
Start	5	0	3	0
Take away 100	4	9	3	0

Answer: 4,930

Example 3

Taking a number from 1,000: count up

1,000 − 263

Taking away from 1,000 is easiest by counting up from 263 to 1,000 in jumps, then adding the jumps.
Jump to the next ten: 263 + 7 = 270. Jump to the next hundred: 270 + 30 = 300. Jump to 1,000: 300 + 700 = 1,000.
263+7+30+7001,000
Add the jumps: 7 + 30 + 700 = 737. So 1,000 − 263 = 737.

Answer: 737

Top tips

Take 1 away from the matching column: tens for 10, hundreds for 100, thousands for 1,000.
When the digit is 0, exchange from the next column on the left.
To find 100 − 76, count on from 76 to 100 and the answer is the size of the jump.

Watch out for

Writing 10 when the exchange should leave 9 behind.
Subtracting the smaller digit from the larger one in a column without checking which number is being taken away.

Try some questions

These are from the worksheet. Work each one out, then open it to check.

584 − 100 =

Show the answer
484
7,654 − 10 =

Show the answer
7,644
5,432 − 1,000 =

Show the answer
4,432
10,000 − 100 =

Show the answer
9,900

All arithmetic skills

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