There are some excellent opportunities for providing a foundation for algebraic concepts in these grades. While the teacher at this grade level should focus on the development of the multiplication algorithm, the teacher of algebra several years later will be able to build on this experience of the student. The cumulative progress indicators for grade 4 appear below in boldface type. Each indicator is followed by activities which illustrate how it can be addressed in the classroom in grades 3 and 4. Understand and represent numerical situations using variables, expressions, and number sentences.
Students do comparison shopping based on items that are for sale in multiples.
They sort their examples into groups where the multiple buy is a better deal, the same deal, or a worse deal than the single package deal. One student has been folding origami cranes to send to Hiroshima for Peace Day in August. He brings the 47 cranes that he has folded so far to class and asks for help to fold many more. The class decides to have each of the 26 students fold one crane each week for the rest of the school year. The teacher asks groups of students to find a way to determine how many cranes will be in the collection after some given number of weeks.