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7th grade · Math · Unit 1 of 22

Add & Subtract Integers

Positives, negatives and zero pairs

What your child practices

Adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers with number lines, temperatures and elevations, including the idea that subtracting a number is the same as adding its opposite.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 7.3(A) · adding and subtracting rational numbers, including negative numbers

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. On a number line, adding moves right and subtracting moves left.
  2. A positive and a negative of the same size cancel out: +1 and −1 make 0.
  3. Subtracting a negative is the same as adding a positive.

Example: −3 + 5 = ? Start at −3 on the number line. Move 5 to the right: −2, −1, 0, 1, 2. Answer: 2

Add & Subtract Integers in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 1 of 22 in 7th grade Math, before Multiply & Divide Signed Numbers.

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

    Start at -4 and add 11. Where do you land?

    -50510?
    • -15
    • 8
    • 7
    • -7

  2. Question 2

    Sam is scuba diving at -17 m (below the surface). Sam swims up 3 m, then down 2 m. What integer gives Sam's new position?

    answer boxm

  3. Question 3

    What is -20 − 9?

    -20 − 9 = ?

    answer box

  4. Question 4

    At 6 a.m. the temperature was -14°C. By noon it had risen 7°C. What was the temperature at noon?

    🌡️-14°C

    answer box°C

  5. Question 5

    Put these integers in order from least to greatest.

    • 15
    • -17
    • -15
    • -8
    • -18

  6. Question 6

    Which expression has the same value as -15 − 10?

    • 15 + 10
    • -15 + (-10)
    • 10 − (-15)
    • -15 + 10

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