This 13-page article presents eight aspects to consider when creating a classroom culture that supports problem solving. The article identifies each of the eight aspects and then goes into more detail suggesting activities that can be done in the classroom to promote more student discourse and problem solving. Throughout the article are links to supportive math activities, research articles and professional development activities.

This article helps educators answer questions about geometric thinking and the activities that develop it. It outlines the 3 levels of thinking about shape and space and the 5 phases of activities known as the van Hiele model. The tangram puzzle provides a vehicle for describing these phases and the types of thinking students achieve in each one. The article concludes with a suggestion about followup activity.

This problem demonstrates the power of the 100 square (Hundred Chart) in helping children to recognize number properties and in beginning to reason carefully and form conjectures. Students look at sums of numbers located in a certain configuration within squares of the grid. There is a link to a printable hundred chart.

This activity gives students an opportunity to discuss the quantities involved in statements about measurements or statistics and may involve estimation, calculation and/or research. Ideas for implementation, extension and support are included.

This problem provides students practice in fractions (tenths) and challenges students' addition and subtraction skills. Students are given a cake with the numbers zero to nine on it. They are asked to cut the cake into three pieces with three cuts so that the numbers on each piece add to the same total. The Teachers' Notes page offers rationale, discussion questions, ideas for extension and support, and a printable (pdf) worksheet of the problem.

This web page describes two challenges that build fact and computational fluency as well as flexibility and reasoning. Each activity uses uses an ordinary set of double-6 dominoes, which students try to arrange into a magic rectangle and a magic square, according to given conditions. The page provides links to an interactive Dominoes Environment and a page of other domino activities (both cataloged separately).

This web page describes several games and puzzles that build number sense, fact and computational fluency, flexibility, and reasoning. Each activity uses an ordinary set of double-6 dominoes. After describing dominoes generally, the page provides rules for the basic domino game and a variation, and proposes several other challenges involving addition, multiplication and prime numbers. The page includes a link to an interactive Dominoes Environment (cataloged separately).

This interactive Flash applet provides a customizable set of dominoes that users can manipulate to play games or solve puzzles. It can be used with an interactive whiteboard to facilitate group work. Users can determine the size of a set (up to double-9), remove individual dominoes, rotate and move them, and change their size. The Teachers' Notes page includes a link to page containing domino games and challenges (cataloged separately).

This dice game combines practice with basic number facts with strategic thinking. Students first are challenged to determine the rules of the game by watching a video of a game being played. The game is accompanied by a Teachers' Resource page that includes suggestions for approaching the problem, questions, extension ideas, and tips for support.

This problem requires students to have a good understanding of fractions and challenges children to visualize 3D shapes. Students are asked how to divide a doughnut into eight equal pieces using only three cuts. The Teachers' Notes page includes rationale, suggestions for implementation, discussion questions, and ideas for extension with a link to a worksheet and support.

In this problem students practice basic addition and subtraction skills along with logical reasoning to satisfy three interdependent conditions. Solvers use the clues provided to determine the number of eggs in each of three baskets. The Teachers' Notes page offers rationale, suggestions for implementation, discussion questions, ideas for extension and support, a PowerPoint presentation, and vocabulary cards (pdf).

Conviértete en un detective para resolver el Caso de la Mochila con Mal Olor! Actúa las pistas y saca conclusiones para resolver el misterio.

Cuando el detective Bentley no puede entender por qué su mochila huele mal, recorre los acontecimientos de su día para encontrar pistas. Asumiendo el papel de detectives, los espectadores representan los eventos del día de Bentley y usan pistas textuales para resolver el caso.

Objetivo de Aprendizaje:
Sacar conclusiones de los hechos presentados en el texto y respaldar esas afirmaciones con evidencia textual.

This is a three act task where students are asked to determine a relationship between the rate of a ferrari and the length of a rope.

The Big6 is a six-stage model to help anyone solve problems or make decisions by using information. Students can use this model to guide them through the research process. This resource helps students evaluate their research skills using the Big6 model.

The Big6 is a six-stage model to help anyone solve problems or make decisions by using information. Students can use this model to guide them through the research process. This page of the Big 6 website is a guide to help you develop Big6 units for your curriculum standards or objectives.

The Big6 is a six-stage model to help anyone solve problems or make decisions by using information. Students can use this model to guide them through the research process. This resource describes a Big6 lesson focused on the final step of the Big6 model, evaluation.

In this lesson, students reimagine an everyday object as a computer, identify what problem the computer helps to solve, and decide how it receives input, and how it outputs. They earn their first badge: Impacts of Computing!

In this lesson, students develop their own secret handshake sequences using three or more moves. They record their sequences with symbols, revise them based on challenge criteria, and socially compare them with their classmates.

This flash applet provides students with an activity to become more familiar with factors and multiples. The challenge is to arrange the four number cards (1, 2, 3 and 21) on a square of the grid to make as many different diagonal, vertical or horizontal lines as possible. The number card can be placed on a square of the grid if the square is the same number, a multiple of that number and or a factor of that number. Users have the ability to change the difficulty level. The Teachers' Notes page offers rationale, suggestions for implementation, key discussion questions, ideas for extension and support.

This problem helps learners improve their knowledge of factors, especially those in the usual multiplication tables, and encourages the problem solving strategy of trial and error. The goal of the game is to go around the track in as few moves as possible, keeping to the rules that a player can move any number of spaces which is a factor of the number the player is on, except 1. There is a "training" track to play on initially to see the rules in action and then a more complicated track for players to use. The Teachers' Notes page offers suggestions for implementation, key discussion questions, ideas for extension and support.