Worksheet Grade 1 Math
Sparrow Creek Camp's Cooler: A Grade 1 Add and Subtract Worksheet
A grade 1 math worksheet where students solve add-to, take-from, put-together, and compare word problems about cups of water poured from a summer camp cooler.
Objectives
- Students will solve addition and subtraction word problems within 20 about cups of water.
- Students will find a missing addend or missing change amount in a word problem.
Vocabulary
Key words: cups, cooler, in all, left
Teacher overview
Sparrow Creek Summer Camp keeps one big water cooler on the picnic table for campers to fill their cups between swimming and hiking activities. This worksheet uses that single cooler, one day at camp, as the setting for eight word problems. Each problem asks students to add or subtract within 20, and the missing number moves around from problem to problem, so students cannot solve every item by using the same method every time. A teacher circulating during independent work should watch for students who reach for addition on every problem; problems 2, 4, and 8 each call for subtraction, and problem 6 asks "how many more" yet is also solved by subtracting.
Student Worksheet
- The cooler has 12 cups of water. A counselor pours in 5 more cups. How many cups are in the cooler now?
- There were 14 cups of water. Nine campers each drink one cup. How many cups are left?
- Six campers drink water in the morning. Eight more campers drink water in the afternoon. How many campers drank water in all?
- There are 15 cups of water. Some campers drink cups. Now there are 9 cups left. How many cups did the campers drink?
- The cooler has 7 cups of water. A counselor adds some more cups. Now there are 13 cups. How many cups did the counselor add?
- Team Blue drank 8 cups of water. Team Red drank 5 cups of water. How many more cups did Team Blue drink than Team Red?
- Team Blue drank 8 cups of water. Team Green drank 3 fewer cups than Team Blue. How many cups did Team Green drink?
- There were 20 cups of water at the start of the day. By lunchtime, 12 cups were gone. How many cups are left for the afternoon?
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Answer Key
- Answer: 17 cups. 12 + 5 = 17.
- Answer: 5 cups. 14 - 9 = 5.
- Answer: 14 campers. 6 + 8 = 14.
- Answer: 6 cups. 15 - 9 = 6, so the campers drank 6 cups.
- Answer: 6 cups. 7 + 6 = 13, so the counselor added 6 cups.
- Answer: 3 cups. 8 - 5 = 3 more cups for Team Blue.
- Answer: 5 cups. Team Green drank 3 fewer than Team Blue's 8 cups, so 8 - 3 = 5.
- Answer: 8 cups. 20 - 12 = 8 cups left.
Differentiation
Support
Give students 20 small counters (or paper cup cutouts) to physically add and remove as they read each problem, and circle the numbers in the problem before they choose to add or subtract.
Extension
Have students write their own ninth word problem about the water cooler, using a missing number somewhere other than at the end of the sentence, and trade papers with a partner to solve it.
ELL supports
Read each problem aloud twice before students begin, and provide a sentence frame for the answer: "There are ___ cups." Pair "in all," "left," and "more than" with a matching hand motion (open palms together for "in all," a sweeping-away motion for "left").