Education Theory, Mathematics 

Problem solving and reasoning are students' processes of actively applying what they know to new problems from diverse areas of mathematics. Knowing a variety of mathematical ideas is insufficient unless students can draw on, integrate, and use them to solve challenging, complex problems. The Navigating through Problem Solving and Reasoning books for grades 3-6 present hands-on investigations that nurture reasoning and problem-solving strategies in each of the upper elementary grades. In lively and challenging investigations for grade 6, students have opportunities to reason about parts of a whole, analyze patterns of growth, discover area formulas for familiar shapes, explore scale factors and similar figures, and analyze a set of data to solve a real-world problem: how to arrange competitors in teams for an athletic festival. Students apply mathematical ideas from the five main content areas -- number, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis. As they work, they infer, generalize, reason by analogy, recognize relationships, and make representations, and they also predict, check, and revise and verify their results. Includes a supplemental CD-ROM that features applets for students' use and resources for teachers' professional development. - from Amzon