Essential math manipulatives

[GWOB]

What do you consider must-have math manipulatives? These would be for a preschool-aged girl. I'm open to every suggestion. Thanks!

[ladydusk]

My favorite? A bag of mixed buttons. The children like Cuisenaire rods. We have little dominoes too that are fun. MEP has questions where you use class members to talk about place (first, second in line, etc.) so I bought some little cutout people and the children have fun naming them and doing those parts of the lesson.

 

The like it when I pull out the seashell bag to count with. Crayons. Colored pencils get used sometimes. Really, you don't have to have "manipulatives" in general, but a collection of little things to count/manipulate.

[In the Rain]

Base 10 blocks are what we use most often, though I don't know that a preschooler would find enjoyment in them. For a preschooler, I second the idea of colorful buttons. We played many, many counting and number games with those! :tongue_smilie:

[GWOB]

Buttons! What a great idea. We do count various objects, but I think my pretty little diva princess would love colorful buttons.

 

I do have a set of Base-10 blocks. They came in handy with my son when we were having difficulties with subtraction and regrouping. If they were pink and sparkly my dd would love them, but I got the boring yellow set.

[Dmmetler]

For a little girl who likes pretty and sparkly, I'd suggest looking at overhead manipulatives. They're nice, translucent colors, and since an overhead set is designed for one person to use at the overhead, they tend to be a good sized set for homeschoolers. They are flat, rather than 3D, but the bright, pretty colors may make up for that.

 

If you get some inexpensive beads (like mardi gras beads) at a party store, you can cut them to do C-rod type activities with and get something that is very, very appealing to a princessy-type little girl for very little money.

[In the Rain]

Here is one of dd's favorite button games.

 

I wrote numerals in the little cups of an 18 ct. styrofoam egg carton. We would take turns flicking the buttons into the cups and saying the numbers they landed in. We wove it into long, convoluted stories. Ex: "My party will have 32 cakes, 13 guests, 16 ice cream sundaes, etc." I can't tell you how much she loved that activity!

 

She also loved wood pattern blocks and attribute blocks.

[ChandlerMom]

Duplo blocks. Work from counting, base 10, arithmetic and fractions. And they were already around the house (on the floor). :p

 

I had base-10 blocks and DDs prefer legos. Stuffed animals work as well. The legos are often fed to them (good for visualizing math, such as "you are having a party with 2 of your friends and 3 more come..", "You have 4 bunnies and want to give each 2 carrots" or "you have 12 carrots to share among 4 bunnies" -- we called it "bunny math" and 2 years later, when stuck on a problem, she recasts it in bunnies and carrots and "hops" right to the answer. :lol:).

[ChrisB]

The RightStart abacus.

[RoundAbout]

I love preschool math! My favorites:

 

1) We love Unifix cubes! Great for counting, patterning, etc. One of the games I made up is called "rocket ships" where I create a pile of Unifix cubes with a different amount of each color. DS sorts the colors into piles, then counts the pieces in each pile, picking out the appropriate representative number card to go with it, then builds the rocket by connecting the cubes. We then compare the different colored rockets by lining them up shortest to tallest. So many skills in one game - sorting, counting, number identification, ordering, and comparison.

 

2)I also love the simple bags of colored foam shapes (cubes, cylinders, etc.) that you sometimes see in the Target dollar aisle around back to school time. I make up all kinds of patterning and other games similiar to the rocket ships game above using plastic animals, cars, etc. The pieces can be food or gas pellets or whatever.

 

3)We also use a lot of natural materials like seashells, rocks, or glass beads. The Dollar Tree is a great source for these. We often sort the glass beads by color or shape and then "graph" them onto a piece of paper by lining them up in columns and writing the appropriate number at the end.

 

4) Pipe cleaners are also great. I will cut a bunch of pipe cleaners to match the length of a few different toys then jumble them in a pile. He then draws one out of the pile and compares it to the toys to see which one it matches up with. Or you can use pipe cleaners and pony beads to make patterns that can be copied or extended.

 

I think my set of Unifix cubes were around $12 but if you have a great dollar store nearby there's no reason to spend more than $5 on math manipulatives.

[Satori]

Once we started using RightStart, the AL Abacus was the main math manipulative we used.

 

I also recommend some kind of counters, Unifix cubes, multilink cubes, cuisenaire rods... I agree with the person who said the transparent disc counters are fun. If you want to see someone who got carried away with manipulatives, check out our math closet. We just started using Singapore, and I swear that playing with the colorful manipulatives has got my daughter all excited about math again.

[monkeymama07]

I love your manipulative closet can I have it :lol:

 

Once we started using RightStart, the AL Abacus was the main math manipulative we used.

 

I also recommend some kind of counters, Unifix cubes, multilink cubes, cuisenaire rods... I agree with the person who said the transparent disc counters are fun. If you want to see someone who got carried away with manipulatives, check out our math closet. We just started using Singapore, and I swear that playing with the colorful manipulatives has got my daughter all excited about math again.

[Holly]

My DC's favorite manipulatives are the food type...chocolate chips, yogurt-covered raisins, candies, etc. :D It definitely makes our math lesson more enjoyable!

 

If your looking at buying some, ;)we also have:

base 10 blocks (I use these most often with my 8yo)

clocks--geared and regular

pattern blocks

geoboards

tangrams

teddy bear counters

round and square counters

unifix cubes (duplo blocks work too)

wooden blocks

 

I also use the basic card deck from RS, but you could easily make a laminated set of numbers 1-10.

[GWOB]

Thank you all so much for your ideas! I too would love to live in that math closet. I'm still deciding what to use with the little one. It's a little early to start a full math curriculum, but we can surely play! Thanks again.

[DawnL]

Anything works. One of my favorites is a jar full of little erasers that I've picked up from the Target dollar spot, or holiday clearance, etc. They can be sorted, counted, stacked, patterened, and everything else you can think of.

 

I would like to get a big box of large shape buttons from Oriental Trading. But I'm having a hard time justifying the purchase, plus shipping, just for some shape buttons. I wish I could find a large jar of shape buttons locally at a reasonable price.

[Susie in MS]

What we have:

 

A deck of cards for playing War.

play clock

play money

domino cards (online print out)

18 sm ducks in a 18 ct egg carton

abacus

ruler

we use jars (1/2 cup, 1 c, pint, quart, half gal, gal )

measuring spoons

a circle cut out of card stock, circle cut in half, one cut in quarters

Popsicle sticks

Edited March 6, 2011 by Susie in MS

[kalanamak]

Unifix

A BIG colorful abacus (I got an IKEA one at goodwill)

Colorful counters (I used three sized teddy bears and also a simple bucket balance for comparing weights of bears)

Fingers

A packet of shapes, like a cone and a ball.

Pattern blocks

Set of plastic pitchers for counting how many it takes to fill a pan. Get ones with easy to hold handles

 

(My son thought the cuisinaire rods were fun to build cars out of. He never took to them for math.)

 

IIHITOAOA (if I had it to do all over again), this is what I'd get. I got lots more and didn't use most of it until he was older. Most useful when older was a big Judy clock, cubes, 10-rods, 100-flats and a place value pad I could put them on, write on and then tear off that sheet.

 

ETA: Oh, and we had a whole lot of fun with those "inch worms" of different sizes for measuring lengths. Also, an easy to hold roll up measuring tape. He just loved that.

Edited March 6, 2011 by kalanamak

[Susie in CA]

Now that my kids are a bit older, I realise that none of the math manipulatives were essential. We could have (and often did) anything around the house to accomplish whatever we were doing. We used Playmobil people, legos, games etc.

 

Susie

[Kuovonne]

If you want to see someone who got carried away with manipulatives, check out our math closet.

 

I'm another mom who gets carried away with math manipulatives. We have many of the same manipulatives scattered throughout the house, from the large clock and multiple balances up to the place value blocks and folding meter stick. I also have several sets of fraction and decimal manipulatives and even Algebra blocks which we have yet to use.

 

On the other hand, I totally agree with Susie below.

 

Now that my kids are a bit older, I realise that none of the math manipulatives were essential. We could have (and often did) anything around the house to accomplish whatever we were doing. We used Playmobil people, legos, games etc.

 

For early math, our most used manipulatives have been Duplo blocks and the RightStart abacus because they are always within arm's reach.

[Crimson Wife]

AL Abacus, tangrams, clock, and the Learning Resources Rainbow Fraction Tiles.

 

I also really like the Evan-Moor Take it to Your Seat Math Centers K-1 activity book and the Family Math for Young Children book.

[kalphs]

What do you consider must-have math manipulatives? These would be for a preschool-aged girl. I'm open to every suggestion. Thanks!

Goldfish, Fruit Loops, Cheerios were our favorites. :001_smile:

[rebeccabillington]

for really young ones, the thing we use the most are a box of dinosaur shaped counters (It doesn't matter that the are dinosaur shape), but they are fun to play with, count, sort colours etc.

[ladydusk]

I forgot one! We used army men one day ... my son loved that.

[Spy Car]

Unfortunately the Singapore materials don't directly incorporate Cuisenaire Rods. They should. They are the perfect "concrete" manipulative for a whole-parts math program like Singapore. Rods are "number bonds" in a concrete form. Rods are the same as bar-diagrams.

 

It is tragic that Singapore did not make the tiny leap of incorporating them as their main manipulative.

 

But you can. Many use Miquon as a precursor and companion to Singapore for precisely this reason. The rods make the Singapore method very comprehensible to children.

 

Counting bear, beans, other counting things are not so good. They get children to "count" and NOT to see numbers as wholes and parts that can be re-grouped in a variety of ways. This way of looking at math is what makes the Singapore method so strong. So why undermine the method with "counting"?

 

It makes no sense.

 

Bill

[GWOB]

Unfortunately the Singapore materials don't directly incorporate Cuisenaire Rods. They should. They are the perfect "concrete" manipulative for a whole-parts math program like Singapore. Rods are "number bonds" in a concrete form. Rods are the same as bar-diagrams.

 

It is tragic that Singapore did not make the tiny leap of incorporating them as their main manipulative.

 

But you can. Many use Miquon as a precursor and companion to Singapore for precisely this reason. The rods make the Singapore method very comprehensible to children.

 

Counting bear, beans, other counting things are not so good. They get children to "count" and NOT to see numbers as wholes and parts that can be re-grouped in a variety of ways. This way of looking at math is what makes the Singapore method so strong. So why undermine the method with "counting"?

 

It makes no sense.

 

Bill

 

Thanks for the different take. I plan on using Singapore with this kid. Maybe using Miquon with Cuisenaire Rods before starting Singapore would be a good intro.

[Spy Car]

Thanks for the different take. I plan on using Singapore with this kid. Maybe using Miquon with Cuisenaire Rods before starting Singapore would be a good intro.

 

This worked extremely well for my son. Everything in the Singapore approach just seemed to click with him because it was really just an extension of things he had done as "math play" already. If a child has a rod that is 6 cm long (normal value 6) and they have another rod that is 2cm (normal value 2) then it is "easy" for a child to find (using a third rod) that the "difference" in value is "4."

 

So:

 

2+[ ]=6 is "child's play". This sort of play teaches the child that if they have the "whole" and one "part" they can find the "difference." Or if they have the all the "parts" they can find the "whole." The Singapore Model is just an expansion of these very basic ideas. Complicated things can be made "simple." the combo of Miquon and Singapore does a great job turning "grown-up" ideas into ones that make sense to a young child.

 

The Miquon teachers materials were a boon for me. They really gave be a handle on how I was going to be able (on practical levels) to facilitate the kind of math education that I held up as an ideal, but was not sure how best to realize.

 

Miquon does take a parent willing to study and educated (re-educate) themselves and it will not be everyones cup of tea, but those who "get it" tend to really (really) love it. It does take a committed parent-partner.

 

Bill