Question

Explain how to find 5 - 7 by using counters . (Show your work)

Answer 1

-3

Explanation:

We have to find the difference:

We start with 5 yellow counters

Since we have to subtract more yellow counters than we have (5 instead of 8), we add 3 zero-pairs:

We subtract the 8 yellow counters:

We are left with 3 red counters, which means the result is -3