What are negative numbers?

Negative numbers are numbers less than zero, like when you owe someone something instead of having it.

Imagine you have a piggy bank with 5 candies inside. That’s positive, you have them. But if you take out 3 candies and now your piggy bank has only 2 left, that's still okay. But what if you take out 7 candies? You don’t just have zero candies anymore, you’re actually in the negative, like you owe someone 2 candies!

Negative numbers are written with a minus sign in front of them, like -1, -3, or even -10. Think of it as a "debt" sign. If you have a debt of $5, that’s the same as having -5 dollars.

Let’s say you had 4 cookies and then ate 6. That means you’re now -2 cookies, like you owe someone 2 cookies! It's just another way to count when things go below zero, like going from having something to owing something, or even being "below ground" in a number line.

Negative numbers are all around us, and they help us understand what happens when we have less than nothing!