A Message to Teachers

If you've never seen these math topics before...

Don't be surprised.
Most people don't think of mathematics as a live science where new discoveries are being made every day. Yet it is! The traditional school mathematics curriculum seldom exposes you or your students to topics and material that mathematicians find stimulating and exciting, so these are the topics that we have chosen to put in MegaMath.
It is very important for students to acquire a feeling for the broad range of content in the field of mathematics. It is true that mathematics is practical, but it is also imaginative and creative. Mathematicians have fun doing what they do because they are experimenting with new things. Professional mathematicians don't bang their heads on the table trying to find correct answers to age-old problems! They are too busy trying to find the answers to the amazing questions that pop into their heads when they think about things in creative and unusual ways.

Don't be intimidated!

These materials have been designed with the assumption that you have had little or no experience with the mathematical topics contained in them.
Most of these topics don't make their way into the traditional mathematics curriculum until graduate school. Yet, as you will see, they are completely accessible to inexperienced mathematicians as long as they are presented without inscrutable notation and arcane vocabulary. We have left the inscrutable notation out, and defined the arcane vocabulary in the section entitled Ideas, Concepts and Definitions.
If you find this material confusing, ask questions. We want to hear from you. We learn far more by communicating with others than we do in a vacuum.

Exploring with Your Students

We suggest that you approach these topics with your students in a spirit of mutual discovery. Browse through the materials. Look at the pictures, read the stories and begin to get a feel for what you find appealing. Ask questions like, "What do we observe?" and "What can we predict?" Together you and your students will be doing what mathematicians do by simply exploring the unknown and seeing what you can find out.
Each of the activities in the MegaMath Workbook is accompanied by background material that you will find useful for seeing the bigger picture. Concepts and terminology that are probably new to you are explained in the section called Ideas, Concepts and Definitions. These unfamiliar words and ideas appear in the text as hyperlinks so that you can click on them and get more information.

Mathematics and Language

We feel that the connection between language developent and mathematics is not only very important, but has, for many years been overlooked. Mathematics is fundamentally about ideas (not numbers!), so the formulation, expression, and communication of those ideas is central to the development of a child's mathematics ability. If, like many elementary school teachers, you are much more comfortable with language arts than you are with mathematics, we invite you to explore MegaMath as you would language materials. (See especially Literacy Lessons and Mathematics Learning and Connecting Language and Mathematics .)

Additional Ideas for Using these Materials

Read essays and articles about using MegaMath in the classroom.
This Is MegaMathematics! The Los Alamos Workbook is a resource book for teachers that you can obtain for free. It contains activities, ideas for discussion, and background information that assumes this is all new to you. Everything that is in the workbook is also online.
Click on NCTM within an activity for information about how it relates to the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Read the mail and see what other teachers have done with this material.
Send mail. Share your experiences with other teachers. Ask questions.