Using a dog's paw as a basis for numerical representation, sixth grade students explored how to count and regroup using the dog's four digital pads. Teachers can connect these base-4 explorations to the conceptual meaning of place value and regrouping using base-10.

Proficiency with fractions serves as a foundation for later mathematics and is critical for learning algebra, which plays a role in college success and lifetime earnings. Yet children often struggle to learn fractions. Educators have argued that a conceptual understanding of fractions involves learning that a fraction represents a magnitude…

The general purpose of this article is to shed some light on the understanding of real numbers, particularly with regard to two issues: the real number as the limit of a sequence of rational numbers and the development of irrational numbers as a continued fraction. By generalizing the expression of the golden ratio in the form of the limit of two…

Presents three algorithms for changing decimal fractions to basic five (quinary) fractions, or for any base to "b-ary fractions. (RP)

The historical development of the integers, the rationals, the reals, and the complex numbers is traced. (MK)

After briefly presenting possible origins for the use of the decimal system for counting and the duodecimal (base twelve) system for many measures, a notational scheme using six positive'' digits and six negative'' digits is presented. Examples and algorithms using this set of digits for operations with whole numbers, fractions, and in…

This booklet has been written for elementary school teachers as an introductory survey of the real number system. The topics which are developed include the number line, infinite decimals, density, rational numbers, repeating decimals, irrational numbers, approximation, and operations on the real numbers. (RS)

Describes properties of Fibonacci numbers, including the law of recurrence and relationship with the Golden Ratio. Discussed are some applications of the numbers to sewage of towns on a river bank, resistances in electric circuits, and leafy stems in botany. Lists four references. (YP)

A mathematics teacher who avoided students' questions about zero, notes that children are able to interpret this concept and any system of numeration in a language that they have made up and can understand. (AM)