The mean can be interpreted as a fair-share value and as a balance point. Standards documents, including Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) (CCSSI 2010), suggest focusing on both interpretations. In this article, the authors propose a sequence of five activities to help students develop these understandings of the mean, and they offer insights for implementing the activities. They include extensive use of representations, from concrete to abstract (Bruner 1966), to scaffold students' experiences and sequence discussions.