Discuss potential lesson ideas with other educators. Talking to other teachers, tutors or parents can help you think of ideas you may not have otherwise considered. You can arrange to get your students or kids together for entertaining subtraction activities as well; kids of all learning levels benefit from interaction with other children.
Play with food. Pass out the same number of animal cookies or fish-shaped crackers to each child. Ask the children to "move" animals to a zoo or fish to an aquarium. Say that a certain number of animals or fish escape in the move and ask the children to eat that number. Have the children count the remaining animals or fish. Point out that they subtracted when they ate the other cookies or crackers.
Read or sing math poetry. Some children are more word-oriented than number-oriented. Teach math in the context of a miniature story in the form of a poem. Read to the kids or have the children take turns reading the poems aloud.
Run a pretend store. Designate one child to be the shopkeeper and let all children eventually take a turn. (You can also stand in as the shopkeeper when necessary.) Pass out pretend money and ask the children to set prices for a handful of items you have on hand, like stuffed animals, snacks and books. Have each child make a pretend purchase and pay with more money than the item costs. Ask the shopkeeper and the customer to subtract the cost of the item from the total money spent together.