APPENDIX 2: What Should I Expect from a math Program?

The National Curriculum and current educational thinking make certain assumptions about the way math should be taught and what parents might see when visiting the classroom. Here are some examples:

1. Children will be engaged in discovering mathematics, not just doing many problems in a book.


2. Children will have the opportunity to explore, investigate, estimate, question, predict, and test their ideas about math.

3. Children will explore and develop understanding for math concepts using materials they can touch and feel, either natural or manufactured.

4. The teacher will guide the students' learning, not dictate how it must be done.

5. Children will have many opportunities to look at math in terms of daily life and to see the connections among math topics such as between geometry and numbers.

6. Children will be actively involved in using technology (calculators and computers) to solve math problems.