Worksheet
Book Drive Math Detectives
Grade 2 book drive worksheet. Students use place value to explain why adding tens, making a ten, near doubles, and subtracting in parts work.
Grade 2MathInteractive · Printable
Aligned to2.NBT.B.9
What’s included
- Single worksheet
- Auto-graded online
- 1 Common Core standard
- Printable answer key
- 12 questions
- Classroom-ready
Details
- Format
- Interactive · Printable
- Grade
- Grade 2
- Subject
- Math
- Question types
- Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Matching, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer
About this worksheet
What students practice
- Students explain why adding or taking away tens changes only the tens digit.
- Students explain why breaking apart a number to make a ten keeps the total the same.
- Students check addition and subtraction strategies and explain mistakes using tens and ones.
How to use
Work through the first section together with base-ten blocks, then let students try the rest on their own. Have partners read their explanations to each other for the last section.
Curriculum
Common Core standard covered
Explain why addition and subtraction strategies work.
Preview
OwlSheets.com
Book Drive Math Detectives
Check each strategy and tell why it works.

Place value clues
Use tens and ones to solve. Then choose the best reason.
Room 12 collected 46 books for the book drive. Then they got 3 more bags with 10 books in each bag. How many books do they have now?
46 + 30 = books
- A. 30 is a bigger number than 6, so the ones do not count.
- B. 30 is 3 tens and 0 ones, so only tens are added.
- C. When you add, the ones digit always stays the same.
- 57 + 20
- 57 − 20
- 57 + 2
- 57 − 2
- A. 59
- B. 37
- C. 55
- D. 77
38 + 2 =
40 + 23 =
So 38 + 25 = books
- A. She makes the problem smaller, so the answer gets smaller too.
- B. Breaking a number apart always makes the total bigger.
- C. 2 and 23 together still make 25, so she adds the same number of books.
Doubles and taking away in parts
Fill in the blanks. Then tell why each strategy works.
25 + 26 = 25 + 25 +
So 25 + 26 = books
- A. 26 is 1 more than 25, so the total is 1 more than 50.
- B. 26 is 1 more than 25, so the total is 1 less than 50.
- C. 25 + 25 and 25 + 26 have the same total.
53 − 3 =
50 − 5 =
So 53 − 8 = books
72 − 2 − 472 − 6 − 270 − 472 − 4 − 272 − 2 + 470 − 6
Check the work
Decide if each strategy works. Then explain your thinking.
| True | Not true |
|---|---|
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