Year 6 Maths

Learning Focus

Introducing Negative Numbers

Administration
Key Teaching
Focus

1. Think about timing could be easy to waste time in transition

to the activity
2. Use of instructions while activity is going on.
3. Guide the students using questions/scaffolding
4. Ensure that each student contributes to the work

Duration

1 lesson

Essential
Question

How do negative numbers fit with our number line?

Background

Nowadays we use negative numbers in many contexts and, as a

result, they seem perfectly natural to us. That's because we've been
taught to see numbers as a continuous number line, stretching out
from zero in both the positive and negative directions. To us, -3 is just
as real as +3 is, but this was not always the case. Negative numbers
have only fairly recently become accepted as part of the system of
numbers that mathematicians are allowed to use. While a great deal of
very advanced maths was developed by ancient civilisations,
mathematicians in most cultures had no understanding of what a
negative number could mean. In this article we're going to explore
some of the earliest appearances of negative numbers and how
attitudes towards them have changed over the centuries.
Among the earliest people to use negative numbers in calculations
were the ancient Chinese. They used counting rods to perform
calculations, with red rods for positive numbers and black rods for
negative numbers.
Indian mathematicians also used negative numbers long before
Western civilisations. An ancient manuscript from 200 BC shows that
they used to use the + sign that we now associate with addition and
positive numbers, to denote a negative number. Although negative
numbers were used in calculations, negative answers to mathematical
problems were usually considered meaningless and were discarded.
The ancient Greeks also dismissed any solutions to equations that
came out negative. They called them "absurd" and "impossible" and
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Year 6 Maths
completely ignored them. They couldn't see how a negative answer
could be meaningful, because it was not possible to have a quantity
that was less than nothing . This opinion was passed down to later
mathematicians in Europe for more than a thousand years, so very
little progress in negative number arithmetic was made for a long time.
So, even though everyone was quite happy to allow subtraction, and
could understand the notion of debt, it took centuries before
mathematicians understood or accepted that negative numbers could
exist as genuine numbers in their own right.
Some mathematicians in the 17th century discovered that negative
numbers did have their uses. Provided they didn't worry about what
negative numbers meant, and more particularly what the square roots
of negative numbers meant, they found that they could solve some
very tricky equations, like cubic and quartic equations. What's more,
although the intermediate steps of a calculation may have involved
negative numbers, the solution often came out as a real, positive
number which was exactly what they wanted.
Since then mathematicians and scientists have found all sorts of uses
for negative numbers. We now recognise that in many cases a
negative answer can be a real, meaningful solution and can be thought
of in terms of direction. The first person to recognise the link between
negative numbers and direction was John Wallis, a mathematician in
the 17th century. He was the first to come up with the idea of a number
line as a geometrical representation of the number system.
Activity 1
Creating a
number line

15 mins

Set up instructions:
1. Move down to the concrete area with the chalk.
2. Students are to work in pairs.
3. Using chalk, draw a number line on the ground. Identify the area
on the ground they are to use. Give them a rough idea of length
and starting point. Make sure they all go in the same direction,
and are parallel. (easier for later on).
4. Let the students draw any number line that they wish. Most will
start from zero.
Activity
5. Get the students to stand on the #3 and ask them to add on 2.
Ask them to subtract 4. (Should be on 1).
6. Ask them to subtract another 3. Where do they go?
7. Most should realise that they have run out of their number line
(as it doesnt go below zero).
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Year 6 Maths
Discussion of Concepts:
8. Ask if this is a problem? How would we be measuring
temperature if we cant go below zero?
9. Get the students to add in negative numbers down to -4.

Reinforcing Concepts:
10. Do a few exercises of standing on zero and then moving away
from zero to show that this is adding and subtracting.
Focus:
1. Give the instructions clearly in one set, upfront and then let them do
the work.
2. Manage the attention levels while they are drawing. Being outside,
with activity, it might get hard to get attention for instructions and
discussion.
3. Only use the moving away concept at this stage; dont get into the
conversion of a +/- yet. (eg, -3 + -2 = -3 2).

Potential Issues:
1. They all understand negative numbers and create a proper number
line from the start. If so, skip through the material and get to the
adding/subtracting concepts as moving away from zero.
2. Too much noise/distraction form the chalk etc and students miss
instructions. Need to keep focus on short instructions.
Activity 2
Move back to the classroom.
Classroom work Complete text section N11 (pgs xx-xxx).
15 mins
Focus:
1. Recap on learnings from the number line activity
2. Give the instructions in one set, upfront and then let them do the
work.
3. Check answers with the class to ensure understanding.
Wrap up
5 mins

The information that you have worked on today will help you in
understanding how to add and subtract positive and negative numbers.
Hand in books for correcting.

Resources
Extension Work

Read on ahead to adding and subtracting positives and negatives.

Homework

Make sure that your work is completed.

Assessment

iMaths books are marked and returned.

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Year 6 Maths
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