>>11597324The problem is that the statement of the problem's intent must be legible for small children. I'll take a stab at it but it probably won't be good.
"Let's say you have to add 8+9, but we want to use a trick instead. Subtract from one number and add to the other, to make a ten. Then add what was left over. Write down a way of doing this."
The problem as stated also implies the notion of associativity and related bracketing, which is presumably a bit above the child's learning based on the statement of the problem. The real problem is for the adult teacher, to get across the notion of tens place and how you can flop things mentally and I don't think I did a good job above just rephrasing the problem in a longwinded way.
