Negative Numbers

I have had some really successful lessons today using negative numbers. I wanted to engage learners straight away and used the following two clips to relate negative numbers to real life and also to visually look at how negative numbers are used.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/topic/negative-numbers

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/negative-numbers/27.html

I then paired learners and asked them some questions such as the following.

• Is 10 degrees a postive or negative number?
• If the temperature starts at -15 degrees celcuis and falls by 3 degrees celcuis what is the new temperature?
• If the temperture is now -12 degrees celcuis and it increased in temperature by 5 degrees what was the starting temperature?

I also created some matching cards where learners in groups had to do sums (multiplication, subtraction, addition and division using positive and negative numbers). Learners were constantly engaged and working together sharing learning.