Year 4 Column addition and subtraction with 4-digit numbers worksheet

“Adding big numbers in columns” is free to print, with no account. It is the first sheet in the Year 4 maths unit “Column addition and subtraction with 4-digit numbers”, for children aged 8 to 9, and takes about 20 minutes.

Print it on A4. The child's pages come first; the answers, and what each wrong answer tells you, are on the grown-up page that follows. Week 7 of the year, 5 sheets in the unit.

Free sample · answers on the last page

Adding big numbers in columns

Name: ____________ · Date: ____________
Year 4 · Maths · about 20 minutes
Answers are on the grown-up page

Today I can add up to three four-digit numbers using column addition, keeping every digit in its column.

A Look back3 min

1.
300 + 40 =
2.
1000 + 600 =
3.
346 + 215 =

B Watch me, then you4 min

Add 1276 and 2458 using column addition. Start with the ones column on the right.

Watch me

6 ones + 8 ones = 14 ones. Write 4 and carry 1 ten.

Tens: 7 + 5 + 1 = 13 tens. Write 3 and carry 1 hundred.

Hundreds, then thousands, give 3734 altogether.

Now you

1.
3185 + 2417 =

C Your turn6 min

Line up the ones, tens, hundreds and thousands. Add each column, carrying where needed.

1.
2314 + 3521 =
2.
2314 + 3521 + 1160 =
3.
3521 + 468 =
4.
2914 + 1469 =

Say it out loud: What changed from the row before, and how did that change the way you added?

D Spot the mistake3 min

Ali says: “2635 + 342 = 6055, because the 3 sits under the thousands.”

1.
What is 2635 + 342 really?

E Think deeper4 min

1.
Two numbers add together to make 5000. One of them is 2467. What is the other number?

How did it feel?

I can do it Nearly Not yet

For the grown-up

Adding big numbers in columns · 2 minutes to read

Answers, and what a wrong one tells you

A

1. 340

2. 1600

3. 561

B

1. 5602 If your child writes 5592, they forgot to carry. 5 + 7 = 12 ones, so write 2 and carry 1 ten into the tens column.

C

1. 5835

2. 6995 Add the ones first, then the tens, hundreds and thousands. No column goes past 9 here, so there is nothing to carry.

3. 3989

4. 4383 If your child writes 3383, they forgot the carry into the thousands. Two carries happen here: 13 ones, then 13 hundreds. The 1 thousand from the hundreds must be added to the thousands.

D

1. 2977 If your child writes 6055, the 342 has been moved one column left, so it was added as 3420. Line up the ones digit of 342 under the ones of 2635.

E

1. 2533 If your child writes 7467, they added 2467 and 5000. The two parts make the whole, so take 2467 away from 5000 instead.

Words to use

Say“Which column do we add first, and where does the carry go?”

Instead of“Just tell them the answer, or do the sum for them.”

After the sheet

Write two 4-digit numbers one above the other on paper. Take turns to add one column at a time, saying each carry out loud.

Tick what your child got right in StudyDen. Anything missed comes back in a later Look back box, so there's no need to redo the sheet.

The rest of this unit

4 more sheets come with a StudyDen plan, in teaching order:

Column subtraction, 4 digits(with a plan)
Smarter ways to calculate(with a plan)
Scale jumps to 1,000(with a plan)
Reading a scale of 1000(with a plan)

Every Year 4 maths worksheet

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