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).
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://nzmaths.co.nz/resource/subtracting-integers at 4:30am on the 1st July 2024