A second-grade class visits Saint John's Food Pantry each year and spends the morning learning about the needs of the community. Then students pitch in and help the staff for a few hours. When the children return to school, they create signs advertising a canned food drive, and they place collection boxes at various locations around the school.…

The teacher displayed counting cards that included both dots and numerals in order from one to five, as she counted them with her students. She then turned the cards facedown, keeping them in order, and began an identify-a-hidden-card activity with the class. This class was engaged in the third of three card activities that develop number sense…

Using Cuisenaire Rods, metric measurement, and mapping, students worked collaboratively to calculate, keep records, build, and problem solve with use of decimal fractions as a key element.

When asked to determine the number of tens in twenty-five, most second graders who have had instruction on place value can quickly provide the correct answer of two. However, when asked to show how the numeral 2 is represented in a set of twenty-five objects, many children struggle to draw a connection between the digit 2 and twenty objects in the…

Mathematical modeling is an important and accessible process for elementary school students because it allows them to use mathematics to engage with the world and consider if and when to use it to help them reason about a situation. It fosters productive struggle and twenty-first-century skills that will aid them throughout their lifetime.

This investigation presents students with the challenge of determining the total number of eggs in a photograph of a stack of egg trays. The perspective of the photograph does not allow students to count all the individual eggs in the top tray but does allow them to see the number of eggs in one row and one column of the top tray. During this…

The How Far Do You Think You Can Jump? activity (see EJ1174770) was completed in three different contexts: an after-school mathematics enrichment program at Woodland and Country Schools in Weston, Massachusetts; a small-group pull-out of second graders at Wren Elementary in Piedmont, South Carolina; and a family math night in Lafayette, Indiana.…

Learning through meaningful problem solving is integral in any successful mathematics program (Carpenter et al. 1999). The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) promotes the use of problem solving as a means to deepen understanding of all content areas within mathematics (NCTM 2000). This article describes a first-grade lesson that…

Connecting mathematical thinking to the natural world can be as simple as looking up to the sky. Volunteer bird watchers around the world help scientists gather data about bird populations. Counting flying birds might inspire new estimation methods, such as counting the number of birds per unit of time and then timing the whole flock's flight. In…

"Classroom number talks," five- to fifteen-minute conversations around purposefully crafted computation problems, are a productive tool that can be incorporated into classroom instruction to combine the essential processes and habits of mind of doing math. During number talks, students are asked to communicate their thinking when presenting and…

Healthy lifestyles are increasingly emphasized these days. This month the authors begin a series of mathematical problems that also address physical activity. They hope that these problems offer opportunities to investigate mathematics and also reinforce the desire to lead a healthy life. In their first problem of the academic year, students…

This article explores the origins and potential benefits of the empty number line for the development of mental computation. It also provides a learner's perspective of its use through the reflections of nine-year-old Emily. (Contains 3 figures.)

This article explores how counting collections of objects helps elementary-age children develop number sense and number relations. The authors provide evidence that counting collections offers multiple entry points for children at different places on the counting trajectory. It is suggested that the teacher's role is one of noticing, questioning,…

Explains "Mathematical Mind Journeys," a lesson format that promotes computational fluency through variable practice that relies on mathematical memory rather than rote memorization. (Author/NB)

Presents solutions for a problem concerning doubling a recipe from a previous article on number concepts in the October 1997 issue. (ASK)