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6th grade · Math · Unit 18 of 19

Adding & Subtracting Integers

Positive and negative numbers

What your child practices

Your child adds and subtracts positive and negative integers, uses zero pairs and opposites, and compares negative numbers.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 6.3(C); 6.3(D); 6.2(B) · adding and subtracting integers with models, and opposites

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. A number and its opposite make zero: 5 + (−5) = 0.
  2. Adding a negative number is like moving left on the number line.
  3. Subtracting a number is the same as adding its opposite: 3 − (−4) = 3 + 4.

Example: What is −6 + 9? Start at −6 and move 9 to the right. −6 + 6 = 0, then 3 more. Answer: 3

Adding & Subtracting Integers in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 18 of 19 in 6th grade Math, after Center & Spread and before Banking, Credit & College.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Add.

    1 + 11 = ?

    answer box

  2. Question 2

    What number added to (−1) makes 0?

    answer box

  3. Question 3

    How many steps along a number line from −5 to 6?

    answer box

  4. Question 4

    Which is greater, −1 or 8?

    • 8
    • −1

  5. Question 5

    Subtract.

    1 − (−1) = ?

    answer box

  6. Question 6

    Subtract.

    5 − (−2) = ?

    answer box

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