Year 5 Addition and Subtraction Word Problems with Answers (PDF)

In Year 5, children add and subtract whole numbers with more than four digits using the formal written column method. The task templates work with numbers up to a million. In Year 4, the same column method is used for numbers up to four digits.

A common error is in subtraction across zeros. For example, in 4003 minus 1857, a child may subtract the smaller digit from the larger in each column, or skip the borrowing step altogether because the tens and hundreds columns contain zeros with nothing to take from. Another frequent slip is writing digits in the wrong columns, so the thousands do not line up with the thousands.

Tasks in this area look like the following:

• Add using the column method and Subtract using the column method, for direct practice.
• Written subtraction: borrowing across zeros, which targets the step where children most often go wrong.
• Column addition: choose the result and Column addition: true or false, which check whether a child can judge a written calculation without working it all the way through.
• Column addition: find the mistake and Written subtraction: find the mistake, which ask the child to spot and correct an error in a worked column calculation.
• Numbers to a million: addition word problem and Numbers to a million: subtraction word problem, which apply the column method in context.

In Year 5, children use rounding to check answers to calculations. They round the numbers in a sum to a sensible place value, such as the nearest hundred, work out the rough result, and compare it with their exact answer. This works with the larger numbers Year 5 covers, up to a million.

A common mistake is rounding one number but not the other, or rounding to the wrong place value. For example, a child might round 4,672 down to 4,000 instead of 4,700, which makes the estimate noticeably too low. Children also sometimes treat the estimate as the final answer, rather than using it only as a check.

Printable tasks in this area include Estimate a sum, where children round the numbers and work out an approximate total, and Estimating a sum: choose the estimate, where they pick the most sensible estimate from a set of options. Estimating: choose the rounding to hundreds focuses on rounding numbers to the nearest hundred before they estimate.

At Year 5, your child is expected to solve multi-step addition and subtraction problems set in real contexts, deciding which operations and methods to use and why. The curriculum also asks them to solve number problems and practical problems that draw on this year's topics, which include numbers up to one million, factors, primes, square and cube numbers, long multiplication, short division, fractions, decimals to thousandths, percentages and angles in degrees.

A common difficulty is picking numbers out of a sentence and combining them because they appear there, rather than working through what is happening in the story. A child might add two amounts that should be subtracted, or stop after the first step and forget that the question needs a second one. Slowing down to say the situation in their own words, or sketching it, usually reveals which step is missing.

Printable worksheets for this skill use these templates: Two-step word problem (combine), where the answer depends on two linked steps; Stock and sets: choose the number of sets and Stock and sets: the most sets you can make, which ask how many groups can be formed from a stock; and Word problem, three days: choose the result and Word problem, three days: true or false, where the child works through a story that unfolds over several days and either picks the correct result or checks a statement.