Mathematics, specifically number and operations, is at the heart of the intensely social interactions of fair-sharing. In attempts to make our classrooms engaging but calm, we frequently underestimate children’s abilities in both mathematics and social relations.

This activity provides participants with an opportunity to explore children’s development in operations as children solve problems that arise through play and interactions throughout the day.

A vignette about teachers Makayla and Jaden draw on their knowledge of "development" to consider if children's understanding of operations has an "order" to it.

Imagine that you, as a teacher, are preparing to read a book to a child or group of children and you want to use the story as an opportunity to develop understanding of addition and subtraction. This document describes how you might proceed.

A brief account of formative assessment approaches that help you learn what young children know about operations.

One of our main goals is to help participants understand the importance of assessing children’s thinking. This activity engages participants in bug detection and analysis; that is, figuring out the thinking that may underlie incorrect answers.

One of our main goals is to help participants understand the importance of assessing children’s thinking. The activity described here engages participants in an analysis of their own thinking as they solve math problems.

This video of four-year-old Ethan illustrates how young children engage in mathematics in real-life situations as he distributes rocks "fairly" using one-to-one correspondence. 

This is a Math Thinking Story about a five-year-old preschool girl, who was interviewed towards the end of the school year in May. Here we explore her understanding of addition and mathematical symbols.

Addition can grow directly out of children's experience with counting objects.  Ben illustrates how a young child adds.