In year 5, addition and subtraction continues to focus on formal written methods of columnar addition and subtraction, progressing to 4 digit numbers and beyond, adding and subtracting larger numbers mentally, using rounding to check answers and solve addition and subtraction problems.
This page aims to provide you with all the Year 5 Addition and Subtraction National Curriculum objectives, along with some guidance for each objective and a range of games and activities that can be used to meet the learning objective in a play-based way.
Teaching Year 5 Addition and Subtraction:
| National Curriculum Objective | Things to think about … | Playful Learning Games |
| Add and subtract whole numbers with more than 4 digits, including using formal written methods (columnar addition and subtraction). | Children continue to explore column addition in year 5, progressing to numbers with more than 4 digits. It’s really important to continue to use practical resources to support this learning – Exchange Shop is a fun activity to use to reinforce previous learning. | Calculate and Find Highest Total |
| Add and subtract numbers mentally with increasingly large numbers. | Children should use their previous knowledge of partitioning to mentally calculate addition and subtraction questions. Number bonds also play a useful part in this so recap of this is important. Counting forwards and backwards in multiples of powers of 10 and use of number lines to help with strategies to add 999, for instance, is useful in this topic. | Suko Card Calculations Beware |
| Use rounding to check answers to calculations and determine, in the context of a problem, levels of accuracy. | It would be useful to start with some rounding games to ensure children remember this from previous learning. In year 5, children need support to decide if they should round to the nearest 10, 100 or 1000 to make sure their estimate is accurate. | Rounding Shove Ha’Penny Estimation Tic Tac Toe |
| Solve addition and subtraction multi-step problems in contexts, deciding which operations and methods to use and why. | Children will need to be able to choose a method that they have learnt to solve a problem, now with more than one step. They will also need to check their answer using a different method. Children should be supported to explain how they have solved a problem and why they have chosen a particular method. Using pictures and symbols can be a good way to explain a thought process. | Match the Vocab Maths Story Dice Word Problem Puzzle |