Various ways to investigate square shapes are suggested. Ways are explored to color and cut squares, arrange them in pentominoes, cut them in half, and arrange six of them that can be folded into a box. (KM)

Several activities are described for students at different elementary grade levels. Some involve estimation of quantities, and others include reasoning about permutations and combinations. (SD)

Describes two activities in a second-grade class that use drawing and writing to explore fractions. (SR)

Two articles discuss elementary school mathematics. One focuses on data collection, suggesting a children's counting book, "How Many Feet in the Bed?", to initiate several possible problems. The other offers a measuring activity for finding average heights and a survey activity to determine the characteristics of an average student. (SM)

This special report includes ideas and activities for improving elementary math education. Three sections present 12 ways to become a better math teacher, 3 activities from Marilyn Burns (a crusader for improved math instruction), and a profile of teachers who found innovative ways to link math to the classroom curriculum. (SM)

Presents suggestions for teaching elementary students about shapes and similarities. Primary students can read an illustrated story that encourages observation and discussion of shapes. Intermediate students can cut shapes out of magazines and describe their similarities. Another activity teaches students that geometrically similar figures,…

Specific strategies and examples for teaching mathematical computation skills are presented as samples of ways to teach starting with the concrete and ending with the abstract. (JMF)

A primary math activity teaches students counting and classifying using a book about a mother and child who tour a farm at midnight. An intermediate math activity teaches logical reasoning through a story problem in which students must use information from a story to figure out an answer. (SM)

Completing these worksheets leads students to discover patterns in the distribution of even numbers and numbers obtained by successive additions of 9 (primary grades). Worksheets for intermediate grades involve counting the number of factorizations for integers, and addition of the first nine whole numbers. (SD)

Using these worksheets students explore patterns in numerical and geometric processes, and predict the outcomes when the processes are iterated further. (SD)

The importance of including statistics and probability concepts in elementary mathematics instruction is discussed. Examples of student-centered classroom activities that introduce statistics are suggested, and six ideas central to statistics and probability are stated. (FG)

Primary students can learn about computation and estimation by reading a story about the use of money, then following up with estimation and calculation activities. Intermediate students can explore the relationship between addition and multiplication using a computation game, collaborating on when, how, and why they use addition and…

Writing during math supports students' learning as they clarify their ideas and highlight what they understand. This article presents math and writing strategies, answers to common questions, various math writing assignments, and math activities that lead to writing. (SM)

The author, an experienced teacher and teacher educator, describes how she has learned to incorporate assessment purposefully into every mathematics lesson she teaches. Such an approach, she writes, tells her whether the lesson was accessible to all students while challenging the more capable, what the students learned and still need to know, how…