What is absolute value

Absolute value is a distance: how many steps a number sits from zero, whichever side it is on. That is why |−7| and |7| are both 7. The page builds this before naming it. Question 1 asks your child to count from −7 to zero and from 7 to zero, and the answer page draws the little hops.

Two standards meet here. 6.NS.C.7.c describes absolute value as distance from 0, and 6.NS.C.6.c asks children to find and place integers on a number line, which is what the four marked points require.

The point at −10 sits at the far end of its line, a good test of careful counting.

Put a finger on the point in the first line and ask, "How many jumps to zero?" Let your child hop out loud: four.

The likely slip is on the last line. The point sits at −10, and a child who treats absolute value as "copy the number" ticks −10. Ask, "Can a distance be negative?"

A quick fix for you: most boxes here are correct. |−4|, |4| and 4 are equal, and so are 7, |7|, |+7| and |−7|; on the zero line every box equals 0. The answer page ticks only the plain number, so accept any equal choice and ask your child why it matches. Its first worked line also writes |7| where it means |−7|.

Tape a strip of masking tape on the floor, mark 0 in the middle, and let your child stand at −3, then at 3. Same number of steps back to zero: that is absolute value with their own feet. On a cold morning, a weather app showing −4 degrees raises a quick question: how far from zero is that?

In Battleship, every shot is named by its place on a grid. Draw a version with a zero line through the middle, call shots like "3 left of zero," and ask how far each one lands from it.

Point to the work, not the grade: "You counted every hop, even on the long line." Next comes absolute value and opposite integers.