Once a number line has negative numbers on it, putting numbers in order works exactly the same way as before — you just keep reading left to right. The number further to the left is always the smaller one. So

reads, smallest first: negative five, negative two, zero, three. Each one sits to the right of the one before it.

Here is the trap to watch for. With negatives, the number that looks bigger can be the smaller one. We know 5 > 2 — five is more than two. But flip their signs and it reverses:

Think of money: owing 5 dollars (-5) leaves you worse off than owing 2 dollars (-2). A bigger debt is a smaller balance. The more digits a negative number has piled up, the further left it lands — and so the smaller it is. It is the same idea as ordering positive numbers, just continued past zero.

Press play. A few numbers — some positive, some negative — appear out of order. We place each one on the line and then read them off from left to right, smallest to largest. Watch how the most negative number sits furthest to the left. Replay it: each time it shuffles a fresh set of numbers.

Khan Academy works through ordering negative numbers here: