📝 Practice Worksheets
🛠️ Related Tools
🔑 Key Concepts
- When an expression has several integers, group the positive terms together and the negative terms together.
- Add the positive integers to find the positive total.
- Add the negative integers to find the negative total.
- Subtract the absolute values and keep the sign of the number with the larger absolute value.
- If you notice a zero pair, you can cancel it first to simplify the expression.
✏️ Worked Examples — Group Positives and Negatives
🧠 Math Vocabulary
- Integer: A positive number, a negative number, or zero.
- Positive Integer: A number greater than zero.
- Negative Integer: A number less than zero.
- Absolute Value: The distance a number is from zero on a number line.
- Zero Pair: A positive number and its opposite that combine to make zero.
- Group: To place similar numbers together to make an expression easier to solve.
- Sum: The result of addition.
💡 Main Idea
A helpful strategy for adding several integers is to combine all the negative numbers together and all the positive numbers together. Then compare the two totals by subtracting their absolute values. The final answer keeps the sign of the total with the larger absolute value. Sometimes you may notice zero pairs in the expression, and those can be canceled first to make the problem easier.
📚 What You Should Already Know
You should already know how to add integers with the same sign, add integers with different signs, and recognize opposite numbers that form zero pairs.
🚀 What Comes Next
Next, students can apply this same strategy to longer integer expressions, integer word problems, and expressions that include parentheses and the order of operations.
🧩 Embed This Video in Your LMS
Teachers can embed this YouTube video directly into Canvas, Google Classroom, Schoology, or another learning platform. Click below to show the embed code.