Question on use of subjunctive in bilingual letter on math homework

Question

This is from a bilingual letter sent home with my son. I don't understand why the following sentence has a subjunctive clause. Is it an implied recommendation? Command?

"Los niños escribirán ecuaciones de suma y resta que puedan hacer a partir de las tarjetas."

The translation of this sentence is "Children will write addition and subtraction equations that they can make from the cards."

Thanks!

Answer 1

The reason the subjunctive is being used is to express probability. Children will write addition and subtraction equations that they could do using their cards.

Thanks so much for the quick response. I guess I thought probability would be more obvious e.g. "es probable que". Thanks again! - 00b0421d, Sep 7, 2012