This paper reports on an ongoing research project investigating how problem solving can prepare students to think algebraically. The student examples presented highlight how investigating and solving mathematical problems from a structural and generalised perspective can foster the thinking associated with algebraic reasoning. Rather than using particular strategies or procedures for classes of problems, the students' are encouraged to build a general way of thinking that grows from their own ways of operating on the mathematical problems. The results so far suggest that students are able to build general ways of thinking that will lead to an algebraic perspective of mathematics.