How Far Apart? Count the Jumps

Eight cards on this 2nd grade page each show two shaded numbers joined by an orange pointer — 4 to 35, 11 to 22, 24 to 67, 63 to 86, 13 to 78, 87 to 99, 85 to 96, 6 to 47 on the sheet shown. Under the pair sit two small counters: a down arrow with a dashed box, and a right arrow with a dashed box. The child works out how many jumps of 10 down and how many jumps of 1 right carry the first number to the second, and writes the two counts. From 4 to 35 is three down and one right; from 63 to 86, two down and three right.

This is distance on the chart, measured in moves rather than subtracted. The second number is always below and to the right of the first, so both counts are positive and each runs from 1 to 6 — no card asks for zero jumps in either direction, and none needs more than six. What the child is really doing is splitting a difference into tens and ones — 35 − 4 = 31 = three tens and one — but the page never shows a subtraction, and a child who has not met the column method can still count their way there on a wall chart.

It prints on one sheet with sixteen small boxes. This face closes the hundreds-chart-puzzles family: the jump-puzzles page gives the moves and asks for the landing, and this page gives the landing and asks for the moves. Use it once the arrow key on the jump page is automatic, and ask the child to say the two counts as a sum afterwards.