Treasure Boxes

Grades K—3

Written by Jaine Kopp, with Kimi Hosoume

From postage stamps to bottle caps, a child's precious collections are natural starting points for guided exploration and mathematics activites, and can galvanize discussion of environmental concepts. In this engaging, innovative series of mathematics activities, children create personal collections of recycled, "found," and inexpensive objects and investigate their properties, calling many important science and math skills into play.

Six main activities are outlined for teachers with clear, step-by-step directions, complete with assessment outlines and "going further" suggestions. The activities build on 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.

Treasure Boxes makes a natural complement to the GEMS guides Sifting Through Science and Investigating Artifacts.

Interested in learning more about GEMS and math instruction? Download our PowerPoint presentation The Rainbow of Math.

Praise for Treasure Boxes

"I like how the children share in collecting, sorting and setting up the boxes. The correlation of each activity with computer programs and with childrenís 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

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