Fun With Homework 2: Numbered Mini Packets - The Conclusion

I meant to post this over the weekend but got wrapped up in trying to finish Quarter 1 grades. The presentations and discussion went well. The students did a good job explaining concepts that are above grade level for many of them. As I walked around to the different groups, most of the students were engaged with the activity. They were listening to each other, talking about the math, challenging each other with vocabulary, and finding resolutions on their own if there was a conflict. The big concepts they were discussing were adding and subtracting integers, using additive inverse property, and evaluating absolute value. Here are a few finished products:

To follow up: Today we had an extremely shorten period due to it being an early release day. So we discussed how to compare integers. We talked about the symbols they already knew: greater than (>), less than (<), and equal to (=). I asked them to explain how they are used and provided several examples for them to evaluate. Of course, some one had to bring up that their elementary school teacher told them to think of the symbols as alligators and the 'mouth' opens up to the larger number. The student quickly added he knew the correct names of each symbol; he just found his elementary school teacher's explanation amusing.

When I asked them to compare -8 and -10, the students didn't take long to state that -8 was greater than -10 because as you approach zero on the negative side of the number line the value of the integer increases and as you get further away from zero on the negative side the value of the integer decreases. They referred back to the number lines we did with integer operations. They also were quick to stated that |-8| was equal to the |8| because they are the same distance from zero on a number line. Likewise they knew that -7 was less than |-7| because the absolute value of -7 was 7 and a positive value is greater than a negative value. Just as the class was ending, they were coming up with their own comparisons.