Math Manipulatives are helpful in teaching for understanding. There are so many to choose from. Let’s look at the 10 best math manipulatives you should be using to teach math in your classroom.
1. Clocks
You can use clocks in your math classroom to tell time and practice reading the time with an analog wall clock. You can get multiple clocks to represent different time zones in the united states or different parts of the world. Making real world applications about what time it is in another part of the world while it’s only a certain time where you are in the classroom at the moment. Making math more meaningful and relevant to the students daily lives.
2. Rulers
You can use rulers in your math classroom to measure things and practice reading comparing measurements. You can also measure different objects inside the classroom and around the school with rulers, yard sticks, or meter sticks. Making real world applications about what types of measurements are easier to do with the right tool. Making math measurements more relatable to their world.
3. Pattern Blocks
You can use pattern blocks in your math classroom to apply geometry concepts and practice problem solving skills. You can also figure out how shapes relate to one another and can make larger ones but putting together certain shapes. Making real world applications about what types of shapes are a fraction of another shape and so on. This helps students make concrete knowledge of geometry by figuring out how each shape relates to another.
4. Playing Cards
You can use playing cards for a variety of things in your classroom. Number sense skills are easy to practice when using playing cards. You can play different games with any of the four operations and the numbered playing cards. It’s easy to incorporate into the classroom with a fun gameboard. Playing cards are just plain fun and students don’t even realize it’s math half the time because they’re just playing games.
5. Dice
You can use dice in your classroom to for lots of things. First dice is commonly used for number sense. How many spaces do you get to move? What is three plus five? What is six times five? And so on. You can also use dice for finding probability of rolling a certain number on one or more dice. Dice are a fun math manipulative to have handy for fluency practice too.
6. Chips
Chips are great for number sense. You can use them in the lower grades for operations. In middle school it’s easy to show positive and negative integers by displaying different sides of the chips. Students can then get a concrete understanding of how to solve number sense problems.
7. Tiles
Decimal and Fraction tiles teach students to name fractions and decimals, comparing and ordering fractions, improper fractions, mixed numbers, and model different operations involving fractions. These are the perfect addition to your math class to show students what fractions look like.
8. Play Money
Play money that looks real and it is the actual size of real money. This set of realistic plastic coins, which replicate actual coin size dimensions and details. All the coins are colored to match real US money. A fun real world math practice for practical skills that kids will use in any store or restaurant.
9. 3-D Shapes
These 3-d plastic shapes and nets are perfect to use with partner groups in your math classroom. This geometry set includes 12 hollow shapes in 5 colors. All the shapes come with folding nets and removable stoppers in the base. Each 3D shape comes with folding plastic nets, which is perfect for teaching children to visualize the 2D sides of the solids. Remove the nets and fill the solids with sand, water or other substances to show volume. Help children understand what geometric shapes hold the most volume. These early STEM resources assist in teaching area, measurement, volume, capacity and shape attributes.
10. Scale
You can weigh liquids or solids for learning about measurements. This scale is easy to read and the tray can easily be removed and washed. Great addition to any math classroom.
YouTube Video of Math Manipulatives
Three rules for your Math Manipulatives
- Must be applicable to a math skill that you teach in class. It only makes sense that you are using the math manipulative to tie to a standard or benchmark that your kids need to practice.
- Students must have access to using the manipulatives. Kids must be able to manipulate and touch the math manipulative in order to create understanding the concepts. Having just one math manipulative for 24 students does not make sense. You need at least 12 for partner activities or 6 for group activities. Note it’s not always possible to get a class set of 24, but you can partner or group kids so that they each get a chance to use the manipulatives.
- Manipulatives must be easy to store in the classroom. The last thing you want is a bunch of manipulatives that you cannot store in your classroom. Make sure you have room for whatever you’re going to use so that you can store it and use it again and again.
GRAB YOUR TOP 10 LIST
Grab your copy of the 10 Best Math Manipulatives list is the perfect for planning guide your for building your classroom library of math tools that work for all students. The list is already done for you with examples of how you can use them in your own room. By using these classroom manipulatives in a meaningful way, you can increase learning in your classroom for all students.
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