This article describes how students in first, third, and firth grade worked on the traveling caterpillar task with Katie Hurckes; it includes an analysis of students' thinking. Each month, this section of the Problem Solvers department showcases students' in-depth thinking and discusses the classroom results of using problems presented in previous issues of Teaching Children Mathematics. Find detailed submission guidelines for all departments at http://www.nctm.org/WriteForTCM.

This article introduces a task designed around the first of the Common Core's Standards of Mathematical Practice (SMP 1): Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. The task encourages students to explore structure through multiple representations. Each month, elementary school teachers are presented with a problem along with suggested instructional notes; asked to use the problem in their own classrooms; and encouraged to report solutions, strategies, reflections, and misconceptions to the journal audience. Send submissions of no more than 1500 words to this department by accessing http://tcm.msubmit.net. See detailed submission guidelines for all departments at http://www.nctm.org/WriteForTCM.