Max Rescues the Pizza Palace: Addition & Subtraction Sprint

About this Grade 2 Mixed Add Subtract Drill

At age 7–8, students are developing the cognitive flexibility to switch between operations, and mixed-add-subtract problems are the perfect bridge between single-operation drills and real-world math thinking. In everyday life, children encounter situations that require both adding and subtracting—managing a toy collection, tracking snacks, or helping with simple errands. When students practice problems that mix operations (like 12 + 5 − 3), they strengthen their ability to slow down, read carefully, and execute each step in the right order. This skill builds automaticity with basic facts while also developing mathematical confidence and the problem-solving mindset they'll need for multi-step word problems in third grade. Mixed-add-subtract drills also help identify which operation a child should use, rather than defaulting to automatic answers.

What your student will practice

• Solve two-operation problems (add then subtract or vice versa) within 20
• Identify which operation to perform first and why it matters
• Build fluency switching mentally between addition and subtraction
• Strengthen fact recall under the cognitive demand of operation-switching

Common mistakes to watch for

The most common error is students performing only the first operation and stopping—for example, solving 15 + 4 − 6 and writing 19 instead of 13. Another frequent mistake is reversing the operation: a child might subtract when the problem shows addition, especially if they're rushing or haven't internalized the symbol. You'll also notice students forgetting to use their answer from the first step as the starting point for the second operation. If a student consistently skips the second operation or gets different answers on similar problems, pause and ask them to read the whole problem aloud before solving.