What a delight to see the kids finally get a chance to think -- to finally use what they know to figure out what they don’t know. As a classroom teacher of the highly and profoundly gifted, I have found Jerry Burkhart’s book “Advanced Common Core Math Explorations Factors and Multiples” stunningly helpful. The joy of mathematics comes shining through especially starting with the lesson on prime numbers.  Yes, prime numbers.  Very, very cool.  He has this 100s chart half filled out with colored blocks.  The kids have to figure out what the blocks mean, and then fill out the rest of the chart.  You will FINALLY hear that happy excited buzz in your classroom as the kids are trying to figure out what in the world that beautiful chart means.  Even with my kids, it takes a while for them to sort it all out.  The lessons in this book are all easily usable with teacher plans you can skim and student pages to copy off.  You can use these at the last minute when you figure out that someone alre