The purpose of this activity is to support students understanding and fluently carrying out subtraction with integers.
Students must confront the over-generalisation that subtraction always makes the answer (difference) less than the starting number (minuend). When a negative integer is subtracted, the answer is greater than the starting number. For example, +4 - -3 = +7, and +7 is greater than +4. Within this activity, you might introduce relevant te reo Māori kupu, such as tau tōpū (integer).
Students should recognise that this is one way to make zero, since there are the same numbers of positives and negatives.
Next steps
What is the difference between 8 and -3? The problem can be written as -3 + □ = 8 or 8 – -3 = □. In both cases the box number is 11.
Printed from https://meaningfulmaths.nt.edu.au/mmws/nz/resource/subtracting-integers at 9:04pm on the 26th February 2024