In these engaging activities children use collections of small interesting objects, "treasures," in an innovative series of mathematics activities. Working with treasures provides fresh ways for students to learn and grow, bringing many important science and math skills to life.
Six main activities are outlined for teachers with clear step-by-step directions, complete with assessment outlines and "going further" suggestions. The activities build upon one another to allow students to develop their abilities in many areas of math and science. Challenges that require careful observation, sorting and classification, logical thinking, graphing, and analyzing data are woven throughout this unit.
TABLE OF CONTENTS: Introduction Time Frame Activity 1 Collecting Treasures Activity 2 Exploring Treasures Activity 3 Treasures of Many Sorts Activity 4 Treasure Graphs Activity 5 Treasure Maps Activity 6 Sharing Treasures Going Further Sources for Materials Assessment Suggestions Literature Connections Summary Outlines Sample Letter to Families
"I like how the children share in collecting, sorting and setting up the boxes. The correlation of each activity with computer programs and with children's literature is excellent. The inclusion of a section on literature connections provides a wonderful resource. . . . Treasure Boxes is a well-designed, teacher friendly program. I highly recommend it as a supplemental resource in early-childhood and elementary classes."-Teaching Children Mathematics, March 1999

Treasure Boxes

Children's Books

Kopp, Jaine

Hosoume, Kimi

Education & Reference

GEMS-Regents of the Univ of CA

This GEMS guide features cooperative logic activities that are designed for groups of four students. Each student receives a clue about a problem and needs to share tha information with all the other group members in order to reach the correct solution. The entire group is responsible for finding the solution, and it can only be figured out when students connect and discuss the information from all the clues. The essential element of Group Solutions is that the students have to work together--cooperatively and logically--to figure out the solution. 
In addition to its strong emphasis on cooperation, Group Solutions, Too!, like its popular predecessor Group Solutions, fosters the development of many key skills and concepts in mathematics and other subject areas. The two books emphasize different strands of mathematics. However, both books will result in lively interactions and a sense of achievement that will likely lead to student questions such as "Are we really doing math?" and "Can we do this again, soon?" 
This book includes 70 cooperative logic challenges organized into five sections, or "Families." Introductory sections explain how to use the book; discuss cooperative learning and logic in the classroom; and provide guidelines for classroom management and effective handling of problems that may arise. 
Group Solutions, Too! was a 1998 Parent's Guide Children's Media Award winner for excellence in activity books.

Group Solutions, Too: More Cooperative Logic Activities for Grades K-4 (Teacher's Guide)

Goodman, Jan M.

Parenting & Relationships

Gems

Build It Festival (Old Edition)

Gonsalves, Philip

In an artful interweaving of mathematics and literature, this series of lively mathematics activities jumps off from one of the well-known "Frog and Toad" stories, "The Lost Button." The story leads to free exploration of buttons, then sorting and classifying and a "Guess the Sort" game. Students design their own buttons and use a graphing grid to organize data. Students also "guesstimate" the number of small plastic frogs in a jar and the number of lima beans in a handful to develop the valuable life skill of estimating. A "Frog Pond" board game helps students develop strategic-thinking skills. The "Hop to the Pond Game" is an experiment in probability and statistics. In the newly revised guide, all grade levels play the fair version of "Hop to the Pond" with six frogs. Then grades 13 play the unfair version with 12 frogs. Emphasis throughout is on student cooperation. The California Math Council has named Frog Math as a recommended replacement unit.

Frog Math: Predict, Ponder, Play - Teacher's Guide

Science & Math

Mathematics

Great Explorations in Math and Science

In this series of fun and playful activities, young children meet the only North American marsupial, learning a lot about opossums, marsupials, and animal behavior. Drama, role-playing, and art are interwoven with science, math, and language arts as students make model opossum pouches, create baby opossums with pipe cleaner tails, and sniff out and munch on opossum snacks. Throughout the unit, children gain practice measuring, estimating, and counting, and, in the culminating activity, they make a book of drawings and writings about opossums. 
The activities can be done in classrooms, day care centers, or at home, and are ment for anyone who works with children. Complete information on opossums is provided for adults, along with lists of resources and children1s literature. The activities have been extensively tested by educators across the country. 
A fascinating nocturnal creature, the opossum is close to the imaginations of many children. These creative, teacher-tested Opossum activities provide a wealth of meaningful and positive learning experiences.

Mother Opossum and Her Babies

Echols, Jean C.

Blinderman, Ellen

Book by Gonsalves, Philip, Kipp, Jaine, Kopp, Jaine, Gonsalves, Phillip

Build It! Festival

Kipp, Jaine

Gonsalves, Phillip

Univ. of California

Book by Echols, Jean C., Blinderman, Ellen, Kopp, Jaine, Echols, Jean

Elephants and Their Young (Peaches Guides)

Echols, Jean

In this engaging, innovative series of mathematics activities, children create personal collections of recycled, "found," and inexpensive objects and investigate their properties. Challenges that require careful observation, sorting and classification, logical thinking, graphing, and analyzing data are woven throughout this unit. Six main activities are outlined for teachers with clear, step-by-step directions, complete with assessment outlines and "going further" suggestions.

Engaging activities provide opportunities for students to explore and gain understanding about algebraic thinking. Through the Fabulous Function Machine, Professor Brangle's Balances, and the Morph Machine young students learn to solve real-world problems, building a solid foundation for tackling advanced algebraic reasoning in later grades.

Algebraic Reasoning: Professor Arbegla Introduces Variables & Functions (GEMS Teacher's Guide for Grades 3-5)

Education & Teaching

Bergman, Lincoln

Gems (Project)

Schools & Teaching

Lawrence Hall of Science

"Algebra for first and second grade?" YES! Early Adventures in Algebra builds a foundation in algebraic thinking for students in the early primary grades. With "Zero the Hero," students learn the important role zero plays in our number system. In a series of activities, including engaging games and challenges, students solve for unknowns, explore the concepts of equality and inequality, and represent and analyze mathematical situations using algebraic symbols. Throughout the unit, the teacher encourages students to explain their thinking. Sample teacher-student dialogues are featured, based on real classroom interactions.
This new GEMS guide makes strong connections to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Principles and Standards of School Mathematics as it builds crucial scaffolding for more complex algebraic reasoning in later grades.

Early Adventures in Algebra: Featuring Zero the Hero (GEMS Teacher's Guide for Grades 1-2)

Great Explorations in Math & Science (GEMS)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kopp, Jaine. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kopp, Jaine

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kopp, Jaine. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Treasure Boxes

Group Solutions, Too: More Cooperative Logic Activities for Grades K-4 (Teacher's Guide)

Build It Festival (Old Edition)

Frog Math: Predict, Ponder, Play - Teacher's Guide

Mother Opossum and Her Babies

Build It! Festival

Elephants and Their Young (Peaches Guides)

Treasure Boxes

Algebraic Reasoning: Professor Arbegla Introduces Variables & Functions (GEMS Teacher's Guide for Grades 3-5)

Early Adventures in Algebra: Featuring Zero the Hero (GEMS Teacher's Guide for Grades 1-2)