Grandma’s Game
Learning to add and subtract positive and negative numbers
by
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What an embarrassing moment Sebastian had today at school! When sent to the blackboard, he didn’t know how much -6 + 4 was! Sebastian, a sixth grade student, likes school very much and all of his teachers, but he is worried about his mathematics class. It’s not that Miss Isaura is not a nice person. It’s just that there are certain things that he does not understand...
His biggest problem is with positive and negative numbers called integers. He doesn’t understand how to add and subtract them. That afternoon his grandmother came to visit. She lives in the mountains in a town called Las Marias in Puerto Rico and came to visit her daughter and grandchildren for a few days.
Sebastian told his grandmother, who had been a mathematics teacher for many years, that he had problems adding and subtracting integers. She said she would be very glad to help him.
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About the Book
Operations with integers can be a pitfall for many mathematics students from sixth grade on to the college level. This story presents adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers in a way that students can easily manipulate in a concrete manner to visualize the answer. This model could contribute to getting better grades in prealgebra through upper courses.
About the Author
Luz M. Rivera was born in New York and studied at St. Paul's Parochial School in the “Barrio” in Manhattan where she graduated from eighth grade obtaining the mathematics medal. She continued her studies in Ponce High School in Ponce, Puerto Rico and then pursued a Bachelors in Secondary Education in Mathematics and Masters in Curriculum and Teaching at Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico, later completing a Masters in Science in mathematics at Salem State in Massachusetts. In 1996 she graduated from a doctoral degree in Mathematics Education at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York. Dr. Rivera has taught in the public school system in addition to undergraduate and graduate level courses in mathematics and teaching mathematics. Over the past 10 years, she has been the developer and director of the mathematics, science and technology virtual journal Revista 360° and the portal for children's literature Carpeta Mágica at Inter American University of Puerto Rico, where she continues teaching mathematics and writing.
Ana María Bonilla email: anamalexa@hotmail.com The ilustrator lives in Cali, Columbia. She studied graphic design at the Academia of Professional Design.