My daughter has always been fine with maths. Integers came in this month and she's lost. Adding negatives she manages, but the moment there's a subtraction of a negative number she just guesses. Half-yearly exams are later this month and the chapter is in. I tried explaining with money owed and made it worse 😅 How did you explain this to your kids? I learnt it decades ago and only remember the rule, not why.
Bookmarking for next year, when my son gets there. The money example never worked for him either. We tried it for fractions and it only gave him more numbers to keep in his head ❤️
Try a number line on the floor with tape. She stands on the first number. Positive numbers mean she faces right, negative numbers mean she faces left. Adding means walk forward, subtracting means walk backward. So 3 minus negative 2: stand on 3, face left, walk backward two steps, she lands on 5. Most children get it after walking it a few times.
Up late with a release and saw this. That's brilliant. Going to tape up the living room floor this afternoon.
Update: did the tape on the floor. She laughed at me for the first five minutes, then did about fifteen questions walking up and down and got them right. Then she sat down and got two wrong on paper 😂 But she could find her own mistake by getting up and walking it again, so I'm counting that as progress.
in my teaching days we used a hot air balloon. adding hot air lifts it, adding sandbags drops it, taking away a sandbag lifts it. taking away a negative is the part that clicks
Keep going
More from the parents who were here.