An accessible overview of the mathematics of operations. Patterning, decomposition, place value, and equivalence are all key ideas underlying an understanding of operations.

This story is written not for children, but for prospective and practicing teachers. It takes the child’s point of view about operations and presents the adventure in an amusing manner that will draw in adults who may have some anxiety regarding mathematics.

Multiplication and division are often considered to be too mathematically complex for young children. However, we see that young children engage in multiplicative reasoning as they play and that their early engagement in grouping provides a foundation for operations.

Children have intuitive ideas about operating on number from a very early age. This piece helps us begin to think about the ways in which young children encounter operations in their day-to-day interactions.