The aim of this presentation is to discuss a variation theoretical analysis of teaching conducted in two research projects involving teachers in preschool and primary grades. The same mathematical ideas possible to emphasize in teaching number relation tasks were scrutinized in purpose to describe differences in learning opportunities being offered. Video-recorded teaching episodes were analyzed on a micro-level. Aspects that were opened up as dimensions of variation up (or not) associated with the focused mathematical idea were identified in each teaching episode. Also, how the teachers used connections (linking gestures and talk) to draw the learners’ attention to target relations in the learning situation were analyzed. The analysis points to differences between an enactment where the dimension was opened up and the mathematical idea was made perceptually visible for the learners and an enactment where the teacher also explicitly draw the learners’ attention to the specific idea by the use of connections. The results and the way of expanding a variation theoretical analysis might contribute to a discussion on how to use tools and theoretical concepts from variation theory.