Real-world addition and subtraction problems: Applied

It’s a new school year, and Maria and Michael are taking the same school bus! The friends decide to see how many people get on at each of their stops. Maria’s is the first stop on the bus’s journey. Thirteen passengers get on, including Maria. The bus drives on to the next stop.

Oh, there’s Michael! Hey Michael! Michael gets on and sits down next to Maria. They have a lot to catch up on! But wait… you both forgot to count how many people got on at Michael’s stop!

Not to worry; we can figure it out with a number sentence. We know that 13 people were on the bus before Michael’s stop. And how many people are on the bus now? There are now 17 passengers on the bus. Let’s write that as a number sentence: Thirteen people, add however many people got on at Michael’s stop, equals 17 people.

13 add something equals 17. Now we can count up from 13… 14, 15, 16, 17! Thirteen add four equals 17. That means four people got on at Michael’s stop. And now the friends can get back to chatting!