Description
Looking to deepen your students’ understanding of addition and subtraction within 20?
These numberless word problems offer a powerful way to shift the focus from quickly solving to thinking critically. By removing the numbers, students are encouraged to focus on structure, relationships, and context—the true foundation of mathematical problem solving.
This math enrichment resource is perfect for guiding students to visualize problems, ask meaningful questions, and make sense of real-world situations before jumping to a solution. It’s ideal for math talks, whole-group lessons, small groups, intervention, or enrichment.
What’s Included:
- 32 Numberless Word Problems
(A mix of addition and subtraction within 20) - Printable Problem Strips for hands-on use
- Student Recording Sheets for writing equations and justifying thinking
- Teacher Notes with suggestions for implementation and extension
- Multiple Versions of Each Problem with numbers removed, slowly revealed, and fully included
Use these problems to:
- Encourage flexible thinking and number sense
- Support your math enrichment block
- Build understanding of problem structure before computation
- Extend your addition and subtraction within 20 lessons
This resource is especially helpful for first and second grade classrooms, but can also be used for remediation or challenge in other grades. Whether you’re using it for a quick math warm-up, number talk, or guided math lesson, these numberless problems invite deeper reasoning and discussion.
Want to help students slow down, visualize, and truly understand the math? These numberless word problems are a great place to start.
✅ Download the preview to get a closer look at these templates and examples from my classroom!










Gigi P. –
Great resource! This can be easily differentiated. Students were mostly able to read these by themselves as well.
Tiffany B. –
I love this resource! We use these for our “Word Problem Wednesdays” in their math journals. I have yet to be disappointed by a resource from this seller; they’re all great!
Mathy One –
I love having the flexibility for students to select their own numbers with this resource. Some of my kids are great at challenging themselves, while others chose to solve with the numbers I provided. Thank you.
Kaitlin K. –
Awesome resource that incorporates some higher order/critical thinking into addition and subtraction word problems. My students enjoy using these!