Ideas

The IDEAS section for this month emphasizes number sense. Number sense is an important component of any contemporary mathematics program. Number sense is the basic skill of the decade. It is the intuition for knowing when an answer is close or correct. Number sense involves the development of number meaning, a feel for magnitude of numbers, and operation sense. Students with number sense also use estimation and mental mathematics with proficiency. This month's kite theme allows students to use their number sense as they involve comparison and ordering, magnitude of numbers, and operation sense in completing the IDEAS activities. The first activity sheet suggests games that parents and their children can play at home to develop number sense.