Arithmetic Grade Five

Lesson Thirty-two: Negative Numbers

Sometimes the answer to a subtraction problem is a negative number. Consider this example: 


	1 - 8 = -7
On a number line this problem looks like this:

The green dot represents the 1 in the problem. The red line represents the 8 in the problem (since it is eight units long). The red dot represents the answer to the problem.

Here's another example: 


	2 - 7 = -5
Here's the number line version of this problem:

The green dot represents the 2 in the problem. The red line represents the 7 in the problem (since it is seven units long). The red dot represents the answer to the problem.

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