"The power of two" is a Royal Institution (Ri) mathematics "master-class". It is a two-and-a half-hour interactive learning session, which, with varying degree of coverage and depth, has been run with students from Year 5 to Year 11, and for teachers. The master class focuses on an historical episode--the Josephus…

Use of graphs in studying greatest common divisors, least common multiples, and other concepts can illustrate patterns related to the definitions of these concepts. (SD)

The use of dice and dominoes in the classroom is discussed as leading from counting activities to pattern recognition and discovery learning. (MP)

Upper elementary school students created their own algorithms for finding products of whole numbers. The algorithms were similar to familiar ones for finding products involving 9 and 11. (SD)

Artistic configurations can be built using a rectangular array of points and number concepts or principles. (SD)

Similar rectangles are the basis of a set of activities using newspaper. Topics arising include infinite series and Pythagorean theorem. (MP)

A learning activity relating modular arithmetic to patterns of figures determined by points equally spaced around a circle is described. (SD)

Charlotte, the author's 11-year-old daughter, was born with Down syndrome, and is currently attending the local middle school. In terms of her disability Charlotte is developing very well and has a reading age of 9+, however her maths skills age is approximately 4 years. It is not necessarily the case that if a child has good language and literacy…

Using arrays of dots and grids many numerical concepts can be illustrated for students. (SD)

The observations of a fifth-grade student concerning number patterns are recorded and discussed. (SD)

Students examined patterns emerging when numbers placed at vertices in a braided pattern were summed. (SD)

While repairing a sleeping bag, the author observed that the quilt stitching was unicursal. This led to development of a classroom activity relating the stitching patterns of quilts to the highest common factor of the numbers of "bumps" in each direction. (SD)