Making Pre-Algebra Come Alive

Book excerpt: This book contains a set of versatile enrichment exercises that cover a very broad range of mathematical topics and applications in pre-algebra from the Moebius strip to the googol. Several criteria have been used in developing the activities and selecting the topics that are included. All of them bear heavily and equally on concerns for curriculum goals and classroom management. Each activity is connected to the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). This link to the NCTM 2000 standards allows teachers to facilitate linking classroom activities to specific state and school district content standards. The activities are meant to be motivational first and foremost. As much as possible, the goal is to be attractive to people who thought they didn't like mathematics. To accomplish this, it is necessary for the activities to be quite different from what students encounter in their basal texts, different in both substance and form. Activities on number theory and arithmetic operations, geometry and topology, binary and exponential arithmetic, problem solving, and recreational mathematics are included. (ASK)