Addition and Subtraction Stories to 20

About this worksheet

A free printable addition and subtraction stories to 20 worksheet with an answer key. Decide: add or subtract? Then solve each story. It matches first grade goals, roughly ages 6 to 7. Draw a quick picture of each story before writing the number sentence.

On this sheet

The class needs 17 cupcakes for a party. They have baked 16. How many more cupcakes do they need? Ivy read 5 pages on Monday and 12 pages on Tuesday. How many pages did Ivy read in all? There are 2 apples in one basket and 9 apples in another. How many apples are there in all? A jar held 8 jelly beans. Theo ate 5 of them. How many jelly beans are in the jar now? Rosa walked 10 steps to the park and 9 steps back home.

Tips for using it

• Check each answer by adding it back to the number taken away.
• Count back on your fingers or the number line for the hardest facts.
• Have your child say each fact out loud while writing the answer.
• Read the problem twice: once for the story, once for the question.

Printing tips

Download the PDF and print at 100% (or “fit to page” on A4). Page 1 is the worksheet and page 2 is the answer key with the answers in red; print just page 1 if you want to keep the answers for checking. The PNG shows page 1 only. Free for personal, family and classroom use.