Addition and Subtraction Worksheet Generator
Choose adding, taking away or both, set the number range, and get a fresh worksheet with an answer key. Written across the page or set out in columns, and a switch that keeps every sum inside one column for a child who has not been taught carrying yet.
The sums
Every sheet is different. Print one today, tap New questions tomorrow.
Answers never go past this, and never below zero.
How they are written
Column method is how it is taught from about year three. Written across the page is how it starts.
The page
Leave it blank and the sheet prints a line to write on.
Nothing here is sent anywhere unless you choose to send or save it - both are one-off and used for nothing else.
Adding and Taking Away
Adding and Taking Away
Answer keyThe gap between a child who can add and a child who finds adding easy is almost entirely practice, and the practice has to be at the right level. A sheet pitched a year too high teaches a child that they are bad at maths; a sheet pitched a year too low teaches them nothing and bores them. This generator gives you the two dials that actually matter - how big the numbers get, and whether any sum needs carrying - so the sheet can be aimed at the week your child is actually in.
What "keep it simple" is doing, and when to turn it off
Carrying, sometimes called regrouping or exchanging, is the step where a column adds to more than nine and the ten moves across. Borrowing is the same thing in reverse. Both are taught as explicit procedures, usually somewhere in years two and three, and neither is obvious - a child who has not been shown will not work it out from the sheet.
With the switch on, every sum is built so that each column stands on its own: 23 + 41 rather than 27 + 48, and 68 - 25 rather than 62 - 25. That is not an easier version of the same skill, it is the skill that comes first. A worksheet that quietly mixes the two is how a confident child ends up stuck halfway down the page.
Turn it off once the procedure has been taught, and then leave it off. Carrying is the thing that needs the repetition, and a sheet that avoids it is not practising the part that is hard.
Column method or written across the page
Both layouts are here because they are taught at different points and they are not interchangeable. Written across the page - 7 + 4 = - is how addition starts, and it is the format a child needs when the numbers are small enough to hold in their head or count on their fingers.
The column method arrives at around year three, once the numbers are too big for that. It is a specific written procedure with its own rules about lining up the units, and practising it across the page teaches the wrong habit: a child who has always written sums horizontally will line up the wrong digits the first time they meet a three-digit sum.
If your child is being taught column addition at school, print the column layout even for sums they could do in their head. The point of those sheets is the setting out, not the answer.
Picking the number range
A chart shows the plan. This shows what they did
Maths, English, spelling, shapes, continents, space and Australia, as lessons to read and timed activities that are marked for you. One account covers the whole family, and you get a record of every run rather than a sheet on the fridge.