The fifth-grade curriculum presents many opportunities to use students' prior mathematical knowledge as a way to bridge new and more difficult mathematical ideas. In this article, the authors document an area tiling task given to fifth-grade students to connect aspects of area measurement covered in earlier grades to grade-level standards such as:…

Teachers often use number talks at the beginning of class to hear the ways that students understand mathematical topics so that they can base future instruction on student thinking. Students who engage in number talks become accustomed to thinking about mathematics in multiple ways, sharing their thoughts and critiquing the thoughts of others. The…

The article uses vignettes to illustrate a small group of of grade 5 students who worked on different types of temperature problems (Wessman-Enzinger and Tobias 2015). The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) recommends including contexts, such as temperature, paired with the introduction to integers in grade 6 and integer…

Percentages have proven to be a challenging concept in school mathematics. At the surface, a percentage is merely a rational number, representing a ratio between a number and 100. At the conceptual core, however, a percentage is sensitive to the context, making sense with respect to a network of related quantities. In the effort of the authors to…

The author wants her students to see any new mathematics--fractions, negative numbers, algebra--as logical extensions of what they already know. This article describes two students' efforts to make sense of their conflicting interpretations of 1/2 × -6, both of which were compelling and logical to them. It describes how discussion, constructing…