The Connected Mathematics (CMP) is used in middle schools through out the United States. CMP curriculum is being used in districts that have a variety of elementary mathematics programs and evaluation studies for CMP indicate that CMP combined with these elementary programs are successful.
The CMP authors developed the curriculum under the assumption that entering 6th grade students would have a deep understanding and skill with whole numbers and that they would have had an introduction to concepts and procedures with rational numbers, geometry, measurement, probability and data. The first unit, Prime Time, in 6th grade develops understanding of factors and multiples of whole numbers. This unit allows teachers to assess students' entering knowledge with whole numbers and to further strengthened their understanding of whole numbers. Three units, Bits & Pieces I, II, and III, more sophisticated understanding of equivalence and the operations with rational numbers. A deeper understanding of shape is developed in the Shapes and Design unit. Understanding of and algorithms for area and perimeter are developed in the Covering and Surrounding unit, while probability and data are developed in the How Likely Is It? and Data About Us units. The Ruins of Montarek continue to develop students spatial visualization skills with both 2 and 2 dimensional figures. Algebraic thinking is implicit in most of the 6th grade units, particularly as students study relations and procedures and represent these relationships and procedures into formulas or rules, such as the area of a circle or the algorithm for adding fractions.
