I like to tell them they’re undoing pemdas which is why they undo the adding and subtracting first. I also like to tell the that they’re undoing the operations and not the sign. I tend to have kids that want to negate the coefficient when dividing. This is hard since the simplifying part requires integer arithmetic and they have to think of the signs as positive and negative not adding and subtracting. It’s hard for them to compartmentalize as two different concepts in one problem. -Patty H
I like to tell them they’re undoing pemdas which is why they undo the adding and subtracting first. I also like to tell the that they’re undoing the operations and not the sign. I tend to have kids that want to negate the coefficient when dividing. This is hard since the simplifying part requires integer arithmetic and they have to think of the signs as positive and negative not adding and subtracting. It’s hard for them to compartmentalize as two different concepts in one problem. -Patty H
Thanks; I'll incorporate the "undoing PEMDAS" concept in the next draft.