Bookstore Account: Adding and Subtracting Positive and Negative Numbers
A Learning Activity is a strategy a teacher chooses to actively
engage students in learning a concept or skill using a digital tool/resource.
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Phase:
After/Explain/Elaborate
Activity:
Students should have been introduced to adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers and have had an opportunity to explore adding and subtracting them. The teacher may choose to review the rules for adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers as an introduction to this learning activity. This activity can be used to give students the chance to demonstrate their knowledge of adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers and explain their thinking.
The teacher should provide the students with a link to the website Bookstore Account or provide hard copies that can be downloaded and distributed (one per student).
The students should have discovered in class the following tricks for adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers:
The first number tells you where to start and in which way to look:
Negative – left
Positive – right
The second number tells you how far to move and in which direction to move:
Negative – backward
Positive – forwards
During this learning activity, students will demonstrate their understanding of adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers by helping Evan solve his real-world school bookstore problem. Students will then explain why it would make sense to use a negative number to represent Evan’s account.
The teacher should walk around the room and observe for any students who might be struggling.
Assessment Strategies:
The real-world Bookstore Account problem will be used to assess students’ mastery of adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers. There is a solution available on the website.
Advanced Preparation:
The teacher needs an internet-connected device to present the problem on an interactive whiteboard if he/she chooses to present the problem to the whole class.
The hardcopy can be placed under a document camera and projected if no internet-connected device is available.
Copies will need to be made of the Bookstore Account problem and distributed if no internet-connected devices are available.
Variation Tips (optional):
Students who are struggling may need to be paired with stronger students. Struggling students may need to watch the video again.
Notes or Recommendations (optional):
ALCOS 2019
7.4). Apply and extend knowledge of operations of whole numbers, fractions, and decimals to add, subtract, multiply, and divide rational numbers including integers, signed fractions, and decimals.
a. Identify and explain situations where the sum of opposite quantities is 0 and opposite quantities are defined as additive inverses.
b. Interpret the sum of two or more rational numbers, by using a number line and in real-world contexts.
c. Explain the subtraction of rational numbers as the addition of additive inverses.
d. Use a number line to demonstrate that the distance between two rational numbers on the number line is the absolute value of their difference and apply this principle in real-world contexts.
e. Extend strategies of multiplication to rational numbers to develop rules for multiplying signed numbers, showing that the properties of the operations are preserved.
f. Divide integers and explain that division by zero is undefined. Interpret the quotient of integers (with a non-zero divisor) is a rational number.
g. Convert a rational number to a decimal using long division, explaining that the decimal form of a rational number terminates or eventually repeats.
Keywords and Search Tags:
adding, Integers, negative numbers, number line, positive numbers, subtracting