I got a message the other day asking me my thoughts on the math manipulative called Numicon. Now, I’ve never actually used that particular math manipulative, but it got me thinking about what I would look at while I was using it to decide if I thought it was a good manipulative to have my kids use. 

I’m Christina Tondevold, The Recovering Traditionalist, and today we’re going to take a look at Evaluating Math Manipulatives in our quest to build our math minds so we can build the math minds of our students.

Watch the video or read the transcript below:

Here are links to products/activities mentioned in this vlog. (Some may be affiliate links which just means that if you do purchase using my link, the company you purchased from sends me some money. Find more info HERE about that.)

My Favorite Rekenreks – MathRack.com

Math Manipulatives at Hand2Mind

Free Virtual Manipulatives through The Math Learning Center

BrainingCamp has great features with their virtual manipulatives that makes it worth the cost to purchase access.

When we are all really scarce for time and money, I think that it’s important to make decisions about what you’re going to spend your time and money on to help your students build their math minds. 

So here’s 3 things that I tend to look at when I am trying to evaluate a math manipulative and see if it’s something that I want to spend my time helping my students learn how to use it, and figure out ways to bring it into my curriculum and lessons, and to see if I want to spend my money on it as well. 

Does it help kids see and build relationships around numbers?

My big thing is number sense. So, I want manipulatives that give kids the opportunity to be able to see relationships. Counting is a really big thing. It doesn’t matter if you’re working with 1st graders or 5th graders, kids will be counting whatever kinds of numbers they’re working with at the time.  Kids need to count.

While they’re counting, we also want to allow them to be able to see relationships. {See in the video at 1:56-3:31 for examples of using a Rekenrek and Cuisenaire Rods to build relationships.}

So anything that is focused on relationship building, I feel like is a great math manipulative but one of the things that does bother me about Cuisenaire rods is that it doesn’t allow kids at any stage to really work with them. And that’s tip #2.

Does the manipulative allow kids at any stage to be able to use this manipulative?

Now I’m not saying that if I bought this for 1st graders the 5th graders also need to be able to use it. But if I buy it for my 1st grade classroom, could all of my kids in 1st graders have access to that tool? 

One of the problems I see with Cuisenaire rods for young kids is that it doesn’t allow kids who are in the early stages of number sense and counting to access the tool. {see 4:22-5:22 in the video for full explanation}

Ann Elise Record, who is a facilitator inside of Build Math Minds loves Cuisenaire rods, but my personal preference is 2nd grade and up. I want kids to have those opportunities to see the individual items, and to build relationships at the same time. But Cuisenaire rods are wonderful as kids start moving past that counting stage. They’re also awesome because you can use them as kids progress into work with fractions. I love Cuisennaire rods for fractions as well. Which that brings us to tip #3.

What’s the return on investment?

You want a high return on your investment. If you’re going to spend a bunch of money on manipulatives, or the time it takes to bring manipulatives into your classroom, I want to make sure that you get a great return on your investment. 

If a manipulative really is only helpful for one thing in your math year, I don’t know if it’s worth the investment. Unless that one thing is a huge part of your grade level standards. 

For example, rekenreks really just help with number sense, and addition & subtraction. But that is a huge deal in kindergarten through 2nd grade. And so to me, it’s totally worth it because you’re going to use it almost on a daily basis because that is the world you’re living in. 

Things like pattern blocks, you might think are just for geometry and identifying shapes. So it might not be worth it, but you can also use pattern blocks to have kids sort and count out amounts. You can also share them with your upper grades teachers, because they can use those for fraction work. 

So I want you to really think about all the ways that a certain manipulative could be used to help your students and really focus in on what’s going to give you the best return on your investment. 

Whether that investment is money, because you’re buying the physical objects. Or if you’ve noticed the ones I’ve been sharing are virtual, and so if you don’t have the money, you can use the virtual ones, but you’re still having an investment of time. Even virtual manipulatives take a lot of time. 

So I really want to make sure that it’s helping build a solid understanding of a lot of standards so that it is worth your time and money if you’re going to actually purchase the physical manipulatives as well. 

In the comments, let me know what’s something that you look at when you’re evaluating math manipulatives. 

I hope that this video helped you build your math mind so you can go build the math minds of your students. Have a great day.

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