Many students can calculate the arithmetic mean but do not understand the concept. The article presents four activities designed to help elementary and middle school students develop this concept. The activities presented assume previous exposure to the computational algorithm for the arithmetic mean. (Author/EK)

A variety of suggestions for making the mathematics curriculum more meaningful and interesting to students are described. Activities that incorporate real-world situations are provided for verbal items, common and decimal fractions, estimations and rounding off numbers, large and small numbers, geometry, probability, and statistics. (KR)