What is the one thing you can do when your students haven’t used a particular math manipulative in your class yet? Let them explore the items.
Why explore math manipulatives? The top reason is that kids usually need to play with items before they can focus on using them for assigned activities. Build in time to explore before kids use any math material for the first time.
For example, let’s say kids are using dominoes for the first time. Give them a few minutes to touch, smell, examine, and build with the dominoes, if they want. For me, getting some of that building out of their system right away is very helpful.
When I was a full time teacher, we would spend a lot of time during the first week of school exploring math manipulatives. The kids would use their ideas with the materials while I was able to get started with assessing their math skills individually (counting, number sense, etc.).
Here is a list of some math manipulative ideas:
Unifix cubes
Buttons
Dice
Toothpicks
Pencils
Bread tags
Small lids
Dominoes
Legos
Coins
Play coins
Popsicle sticks
Pasta
Beans
Old keys
Jewels
Game pieces
Erasers in fun shapes
Regular erasers
Craft poms
Pebbles
Seashells
Calculators
They can use these items for counting, sorting, patterning, building, practicing place value, etc.
What other items would you add to the list?
~Carrie
Note: Exploring manipulatives is also mentioned in this First Week Toolkit:
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