Their research provides scientific evidence of Logo's potential environment for the construction of mathematical knowledge. Functions and Variables Logo's procedural inputs and mathematical reporters give kids concrete practice with variables. A favorite project I like to conduct with fifth and sixth graders creates a fraction calculator. Then we write procedures to report the numerator and denominator of a fraction. From there, the class can easily collaborate to write a procedure which adds two fractions.
Some kids can even make the procedure add fractions with different denominators.
From there, all of the standard fraction operations can be written as Logo procedures by groups of children. The next challenge the kids typically tackle is the subtraction of fractions. I noticed the negative fraction and mentioned that when I was in school we were taught that fractions had to be positive. Therefore, there is no such thing as a negative fraction. We even discussed the difference between symbols and numbers.