Fact Triangles

One new method that was taught during my first couple of weeks in the alternative experience was something called fact triangles. These fact triangles can be sued to teach addition, subtraction, multiplication and division consisting of both positive and negative numbers. The transition made between the fact triangles and students being able to perform these mathematical operations without aids consists of students drawing on a number line and then writing a "rule(s)" that they believe works for each operation. I think that the way that each process was taught was fluid and most logically made sense as students worked out each they became familiar with the operations for positive and negative numbers. I think another benefit to using fact triangles is that they are versatile and it could be the one underlying method that all students can grow to be familiar with as they move on to other operations.