This half term has seen Year 5 begin learning about negative numbers.
They started by playing a game using cubes. They found themselves with not enough and having to use negative numbers! Children noticed that when this happened the subtrahend was bigger than the whole they started with. Year 5 moved on to placing negative numbers on the numberline, noticing that numbers to the left of zero are negative and those to the right are positive.
Year 5 put negative numbers into real life contexts by noticing temperatures on thermometers and floor levels in high rise buildings. Children will move on to using negative numbers to plot coordinates on a four quadrant grids and interpreting data from graphs including negative numbers.