Elementarymath.edc.org is dedicated to giving K–6 teachers, school leaders, families, and researchers ideas and materials for
- teaching mathematics—both the thinking and the skills—effectively,
- experiencing and enjoying its logic, beauty, surprise and creativity, and
- helping students also experience mathematics as sensible, beautiful, surprising and creative.
All of our work at EDC—in mathematics, science, and computer science—begins and ends with close collaboration with classroom teachers. Many of us are or were classroom teachers and all of us—our educators, researchers, and curriculum developers—work in partnership with teachers and schools to construct new tools and models grounded in the daily realities of the classroom. We value both the content and professional practice—the habits of mind—of these fields and work closely with outside mathematicians, scientists, and computer scientists to supplement our own expertise in these areas.
Curriculum development at EDC is guided by research grounded in the classroom, and is predicated on goals for promoting deep disciplinary thinking, supporting a diversity of learners, and providing engaging and motivating experiences for students.
On this site, you will find:
- answers to questions teachers frequently ask about mathematics (like How should the two dimensions of a rectangle be labeled – length and width; or width and height; or even length and height? and What is the meaning of multiplication?)
- informational pages that connect and clarify the ideas of mathematics for teachers
- short blog posts and other articles sharing insights on children’s mathematical thinking
- publications written by our EDC team
- comprehensive curriculum materials (student materials and teacher guides) from EDC’s Think Math! for teaching K–5 mathematics
- independent activities and games for learning mathematics
- programming activities in which children use (and learn) coding to learn mathematics