I teach the concept of a procedure since that's how functions are in most programming languages but I also emphasize the concept of a mathematical function. The

I teach the concept of a procedure since that's how functions are in most programming languages but I also emphasize the concept of a mathematical function. The procedure perspective looks into the box whereas the functional perspective thinks more about composition than the details inside the box. 4 → square_root → triple → ? How does the square_root function work? It's an interesting question but often times assembling multiple atoms into a structure is more empowering and exciting; plus children will be using functions where the details elude them for quite awhile. Using functions with elusive details is also typical in math pedagogy so children should get used to reasoning around black boxes.