Rational Numbers

What if you were asked, what is a number? Most people would answer this by counting 1, 2, 3, etc… But, what we have learned is that there is much more to that. When we started our unit on Rational Numbers we made a chart of rational and irrational numbers to understand what we were learning. We learned that rational numbers are integers, whole numbers, and natural numbers. Irrational numbers are numbers that can’t be written as a fraction.

We made a chart to learn what numbers would be classified in each group. Mrs. Gilmartin gave us a number and we had to put it in a group according to the definition of the group.

  

 Once we understood the meaning of rational numbers, we learned how we would use positive and negative numbers in the real world. We learned that we use them in sea level, temperature, and money.  We started working on adding and subtracting integers. First, we started out pretty easy like   7+ (-3) or something like 6+ (-6). After we mastered that we moved on to adding and subtracting integers with larger numbers and decimals. We added numbers like 24.47+ (-13.75) or -13.53+ 50. We quickly found out that adding a negative number to a positive number is the same as finding the difference between the two numbers. At first, I thought it was a bit challenging. But when we used number lines as a visual, I got the hang of it and it was a breeze.

One way positive and negative numbers appear in the real world is money.  We made a chart to keep track or credits and debits. We did this to work on our adding integers skills. For a debit we had to add a negative number and a credit we had to add a positive number.

  

Learning about integers is important because we use them in the real world. We use them for money, temperature, and sea level.

By:   Sam