Max Maths, Year 6, Work Book, Mental addition and subtraction

The Max Maths workbook for Year 6 includes a section dedicated to enhancing students' skills in mental addition and subtraction. In Practice 2, students are encouraged to add numbers in their heads. For instance, when dealing with multiples of 10, they can simply add the hundreds and tens place values and then multiply the sum by 10 to find the total. An example given is the addition of 130 and 140. Similarly, for multiples of 100, students add the thousands and hundreds before multiplying the result by 100, as demonstrated with 5,200 and 3,700. This method simplifies the process and helps students quickly determine the sum of large numbers without the need for written calculations.

Conversely, the workbook also guides students through mental subtraction. When the numbers involved are multiples of 10, students subtract the hundreds and tens and then multiply the difference by 10. For example, finding the difference between 680 and 320. If the numbers are multiples of 100, the thousands and hundreds are subtracted before multiplying the difference by 100, as shown with 2,500 and 1,800. Additionally, the workbook provides strategies for subtracting non-multiples, such as 456 and 123, by breaking down the process into adding hundreds, tens, and ones incrementally until the larger number is reached. The sums of these increments reveal the overall difference between the two numbers, facilitating a clear and manageable approach to mental arithmetic.