Emphasizes the importance of proofs and offers examples and ideas that might help educators develop students' mathematical reasoning skills. (ASK)

Two types of activities help parents stimulate children's numerical thinking. Describes one type that involves highlighting everyday situations and another that includes group games. Presents a selection of games for children and parents that encourage children to develop number relationships. (ASK)

Describes computer activities that offer middle school students opportunities to cooperatively explore problem situations and connect mathematical understandings to each other, to their experiences, and to other disciplines. Contains 19 references. (Author/ASK)

Offers ideas for 15 active learning experiences that use the concept of "10" for 3- to 5-year olds. Included are mathematics activities, language activities, and music and movement activities. Each activity description includes the objective, a list of materials needed, and steps for completing the activity. (KB)

Presents a problem that requires solving a card problem by exploring patterns that will lead to a logical solution. Involves students in developing and analyzing their own algorithms as well as discussing their reasoning with peers. (ASK)

Presents a teacher's experiences with teaching fractions by employing the constructivist approach. Concludes that children will go much further with depth, pleasure, and confidence if they are allowed to construct their own mathematics to make sense to them every step of the way. (ASK)

Describes an activity designed to connect geometry with real life for seventh grade students. This activity centers on an elementary investigation of the rigidity characteristics of triangles. Students also discuss the similarities and differences of polygons. (ASK)

Argues that assessment does not have to be a formal score in the grade book; rather it can be an informal process used by the teacher to direct the lesson. Provides a real-world activity for assessing students' understanding of percents and fractions where students use ratios, proportions, and percents to solve problems involving the comparisons…

Discusses the development of Math Attack, a project designed to make middle school mathematics engaging, fun, and useful to middle school students by involving them in problems solving. Describes the effect of the project in helping students learn to think and communicate mathematically and helping teachers develop skill and confidence. (JPB)

Tested effects of a structured intervention in teaching children to represent addition and subtraction. Found significant differences between two study groups in terms of affecting the addition and subtraction operations and ability to determine which operation was appropriate. Results suggest children's exploration of real world situations should…

Describes a consumer-math-skills project in which students make geometric shapes using pretzel sticks and gumdrops, then start a shop to sell them. This requires counting costs, pricing items, setting up shop, using money, making change, and understanding profits. Students reflect on the experience and write lists of the math they used to create…

Touts using the schoolyard for teaching mathematics. Mathematics is a way of describing the world and its patterns; schoolyards are especially suited to concept application and problem solving. Mathematics in a natural setting also allows students and teachers to meet learning objectives in more than one subject area. Includes math activities for…

Students set up a pizza parlor and choose a name for the parlor, menus and drinks, the number of customers they will serve, and numbers of table settings and ingredients they will need. Students choose work roles in the parlor, and student customers pay the parlor with paper money they designed. Includes full activity instructions, pizza recipe,…

Parents' math and science-promotive behaviors predict children's activities and interest in these courses. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.)

This paper reports on a design experiment in the domain of number sequences conducted in the course of the "WebLabs" project. We iteratively designed and tested a set of activities and tools in which 10-14 year old students used the "ToonTalk" programming environment to construct models of sequences and series, and then shared…