Chapter 1 wrap up

The main goal of this chapter is to show how important algebraic thinking is at the elementary level and how it “grows up” with the use of variables in the later grades. Hopefully it helped you understand and appreciate the power of algebra as something you can pass on to your future students.

Algebra is the foundation of mathematical modeling. In subsequent chapters we will explore specific types of models in many different forms: pictures, graphs, tables, equations, and more. In particular, the next chapter expands on forming models via pattern recognition, similar to some of the examples in the beginning of this chapter.