Classroom Idea Sheet

Absolutely Valuable Game!

In this fast-paced game of addition, students discover that the “absolute value” of a number is simply its distance from zero on a number line.

Standards alignment

Common Standards — cross-referenced to the Common Core State Standards, the Next Generation Science Standards and the California Content Standards.
StandardFrameworkGradeSubjectDomain
Mathematical Practices: 1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4. Model with mathematics. 5. Use appropriate tools strategically. 6. Attend to precision. 7. Look for and make use of structure. 8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.Common Core MathematicsGrade 5Mathematical Practices
Mathematical Practices: 1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4. Model with mathematics. 5. Use appropriate tools strategically. 6. Attend to precision. 7. Look for and make use of structure. 8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.Common Core MathematicsGrade 6Mathematical Practices
6.NS.5. Understand that positive and negative numbers are used together to describe quantities having opposite directions or values (e.g., temperature above/below zero, elevation above/below sea level, credits/debits, positive/negative electric charge); use positive and negative numbers to represent quantities in real-world contexts, explaining the meaning of 0 in each situation.Common Core MathematicsGrade 6The Number SystemApply And Extend Previous Understandings Of Numbers To The System Of Rational Numbers
6.NS.6. Understand a rational number as a point on the number line. Extend number line diagrams and coordinate axes familiar from previous grades to represent points on the line and in the plane with negative number coordinates.Common Core MathematicsGrade 6The Number SystemApply And Extend Previous Understandings Of Numbers To The System Of Rational Numbers
6.NS.7. Understand ordering and absolute value of rational numbers.Common Core MathematicsGrade 6The Number SystemApply And Extend Previous Understandings Of Numbers To The System Of Rational Numbers
Mathematical Practices: 1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4. Model with mathematics. 5. Use appropriate tools strategically. 6. Attend to precision. 7. Look for and make use of structure. 8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.Common Core MathematicsGrade 7Mathematical Practices
7.NS.1. Apply and extend previous understandings of addition and subtraction to add and subtract rational numbers; represent addition and subtraction on a horizontal or vertical number line diagram.Common Core MathematicsGrade 7The Number SystemApply And Extend Previous Understandings Of Operations With Fractions To Add, Subtract, Multiply, And Divide Rational Numbers
Mathematical Practices: 1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4. Model with mathematics. 5. Use appropriate tools strategically. 6. Attend to precision. 7. Look for and make use of structure. 8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.Common Core MathematicsGrade 8Mathematical Practices
Mathematical Practices: 1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4. Model with mathematics. 5. Use appropriate tools strategically. 6. Attend to precision. 7. Look for and make use of structure. 8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.Common Core MathematicsHigh SchoolMathematical Practices
California Standards — cross-referenced to the Common Core State Standards, the Next Generation Science Standards and the California Content Standards.
StandardFrameworkGradeSubjectDomain
1.5 Identify and represent on a number line decimals, fractions, mixed numbers, and positive and negative integers.CA MathematicsGrade 501. Number Sense1.0 Students compute with very large and very small numbers, positive integers, decimals, and fractions and understand the relationship between decimals, fractions, and percents. They understand the relative magnitudes of numbers.
2.1 Add, subtract, multiply, and divide with decimals; add with negative integers; subtract positive integers from negative integers; and verify the reasonableness of the results.CA MathematicsGrade 501. Number Sense2.0 Students perform calculations and solve problems involving addition, subtraction, and simple multiplication and division of fractions and decimals.
2.3 Solve addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems, including those arising in concrete situations, that use positive and negative integers and combinations of these operations.CA MathematicsGrade 601. Number Sense2.0 Students calculate and solve problems involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
2.5 Understand the meaning of the absolute value of a number; interpret the absolute value as the distance of the number from zero on a number line; and determine the absolute value of real numbers.CA MathematicsGrade 701. Number Sense2.0 Students use exponents, powers, and roots and use exponents in working with fractions.

About this sheet

Grades covered

Grade 5 – Grade 9

Curriculum topics

Absolute Value, Number Lines, Adding Positive and Negative Numbers

Sheet number

652