Many students have told me that the integer rules just don't make sense. And although I've used number lines, money, gambling and weight loss clubs to help promote understanding of the concept. There are some individuals that would just prefer the rules when using the 4 operations with positive and negative integers. So if that's your style, here are the rules.
See also: Order of Operations
And, be sure to try the worksheets with answers on the 2nd page of the PDF.
Comments
Positive/Negative Integers can also be viewed in football, golf and Simon Says.
Concept understanding is important in introducing integers but seems to me the most important is to be familiar with rules since no matter how you teach if students can not follow rules then their computing will be slower if they keep thinking about how to operate integers using concepts.
students relying on rules fall short in later mathematics classes. High school students who struggle with algebra are still confusing the rules they tried to learn – thinking that’s what math is all about. However, using tile spacers has been so successful with concept development. Students THEN generalize a rule that works for them…not one that is simply memorized.