Something that we teachers have been doing since the start of this pandemic is being accommodating. I think it’s so important to utilize manipulatives that can be available to all students whether we’re in the classroom together or at home. Even if some of us may be virtual, learning can and should still be fun and interactive! Here are a few ideas to help you get started with your list of manipulatives!
Kids love to work with their hands, but it’s hard to beat anything as convenient as virtual manipulatives. Your students will love working with these items just as much as tangible ones!
Let students get creative with building numbers with these virtual base ten blocks. You can ask them to create specific numbers by selecting 100’s, 10’s, and 1’s. This is a great way to build number sense, practice addition, subtraction, place value, and even simple division and multiplication. Students really benefit from physically seeing equations such as 10 doubled is 20, 50 doubled is 100, or half of 10 is 5 – concrete learning!
I love the dice app because you can utilize as many dice as you need! Not only are dice needed for games, but they can easily be used for addition and subtraction practice, as well. For example, head to the site and choose 2 dice. Students can practice adding both numbers together or subtracting the smaller number from the larger. If students need a challenge, add more dice to the screen and have them practice adding multiple numbers together. There are so many possibilities!
Mathigon is a super site to use for shapes, number bars, fraction tiles, and tangrams! This is a great virtual manipulative to use for identifying shapes, building number sense, and boosting creativity by working with tangrams. I especially like the colored number bars on this site because they can really help students see a concrete representation of comparable numbers. For example, if you put the 3 bar and the 7 bar next to each other, it’s the same size as the 10 bar. This is great for students to physically see that 3+7=10.
This site allows you to choose from five, ten, twenty, or hundred frames to work with. Having students work with ten frames really helps them with mental math and grouping numbers. For example, 6 represented in a ten frame shows 1 more than 5, but also 4 less than 10. This is an important concept for students to learn as they begin working with larger numbers.
I love incorporating money as a math manipulative because it’s such a real-world experience for my students. Of course we know that counting back change is a significant skill to learn, but working with money can also help with skip counting, addition, and subtraction. Although working with pennies is nearly the same as working with single units in base ten blocks, some students will thrive by working with money simply because it’s a tangible, real-world concept!
I found a Canadian money site/ app too.
Sand timers are so easy to misplace when working with games or timed activities. And an added bonus for this virtual sand timer – not everyone is wanting to put their hands all over it! 🙂
I love using this site to help students recognize geometric shapes around them. Students are presented with different pictures that are in our everyday lives and environment around us. They must match them with their corresponding shape. For example, a picture of a sailboat would be matched with a triangle. The base of a watering can is a cylinder. This manipulative inspires me to create a scavenger hunt for my students to identify other shapes in their homes or in the classroom!
If you know you’re in need of manipulatives or are inspired to incorporate more hands-on learning this school year but aren’t sure where to start, I highly recommend visiting Toy Theater. It offers colored counters, clocks, timers, number lines, rekenreks, multiple number charts, and so many others. You will have so much fun sifting through all the things and deciding what your students will love!
I know this school year has started off more stressful compared to others, but it is up to us to help our students remember this time as a positive experience – one that is engaging, creative, and fun! Enjoy! 🙂
