Some people recognize a palindrome when they see one, however fewer realize that a palindrome is a special case of a pattern and that these patterns are all around. Palindromes frequently occur in names, both of vehicles and people, and in music. The traditional mathematical curriculum has often left palindromes out of the common vernacular. Where…

Place value underpins much of what people do in number. In this article, the author describes some simple tasks that may be used to assess students' understanding of place value. This set of tasks, the Six Tasks of Place Value (SToPV), takes five minutes to administer and can give direct insight into a student's understanding of the number system…

One of the difficulties in any teaching of mathematics is to bridge the divide between the abstract and the intuitive. Throughout school one encounters increasingly abstract notions, which are more and more difficult to relate to everyday experiences. This article examines a familiar approach to thinking about negative numbers, that is an…

Children are often intrigued by number patterns and games and so it makes sense for teachers to include them in their mathematics lessons. Puzzles encourage the use of critical thinking skills and provide practice in important skills areas. The use of games fosters mathematical learning and encourages the mathematical processes that children use.…

Whenever teachers of young children get together there will be differences of opinion about how far children should be taught to count. Some will argue that the focus should be on small numbers to 9, building up the notion of what, say, the name 5 means, what it looks like, and how it can be represented. Others argue that with ice blocks retailing…

In this article, the author reports findings from a project designed to explore approaches for improving students' mathematical learning outcomes in relation to the base ten number system. The project explored the role of a commonly used teaching activity, referred to in the project as the "base ten game," in developing children's…

Hypothesizes that exploring the mathematical ideas behind mathematical terms enables children to gain insight into the structure of a number system and provides a basis for powerful playing with this structure. Describes visualizing mathematical ideas for exploring aspects of mathematics. Offers rectangular numbers to link and explore structures…