In this study we investigate how teachers talk about their use of mathematics teacher guides for support and inspiration, with the aim of broadening the knowledge of how teachers use these guides in and for teaching. Our second aim is to test whether guidelines for designing educative curriculum material can serve as an analytical tool. The results show that less experienced teachers use a wider scope of content in the teacher guide whereas more experienced teachers use teaching activities1 and support for the design of teaching. Common for all teachers, despite level of experience, is that they want the teacher guide to provide connections between theory and practice. The analytical tool served well for analysing interviews, helping us pay attention to the features of the content discussed.