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Mastering the MathRack book

The BEST Rekenreks on the market: MathRack.com

The Number Sense courses are now revised and are called the Flexibility Formula Course. The above video references a registration bonus for the course that no longer applies.  You can learn more about new bonus items for course joiners by visiting:

• The Flexibility Formula for grades K-2nd
• The Flexibility Formula for graded 3-5th

This video details out my top five activities on how to use a rekenrek in your classroom, especially around how to help build your kiddo’s number sense.

Activity #5: Just Let Kids Play

The one rule you have is to put “white on right” and then you push beads to the left. So if I wanted kids to be just playing and showing numbers, we want them to start on the right and then count beads out towards the left. This is because we read from left to right and so their eyes are drawn to the beads that are on the left side.

I call this “in play.” The beads on the right are “out of play.” So, just let them play, just let them discover & play around. Because kids who are still in the counting phase, they will be counting, but as they’re counting and they count out four things, they might start to notice about how that four relates to five and how, if I just had one more pushed over, it would make five.

It’s all about letting kids just play and discover things about quantities, while they’re working with the Rekenrek. So, no right or wrong way to use it.

Activity #4: Number Strings/Talks

I personally like doing strings of related problems. I have a free video series, that get’s released once a year and a lot of people were posting in comments about how the concept of one and two more and less is really difficult for their kids and in particular, two more and two less is really difficult.

So, you could create a string with the rekenrek. It’s basically you just showing them certain quantities they can subitize, but focus on the relationship between the quantities. I could start by showing 5, then after I show five I’d show 4 and I would say, “how many is it and how do you know?”

I want to see, are kids counting or do they understand it’s got to be one less than the one we just showed? Then I might come back and show five again, and then show six and hope that they start to notice the relationships.

So I could keep on going and do five and then the next one, I might do is three. Hopefully, we see some kids who are noticing it is two less and if they aren’t noticing it, then sometimes we have to talk about it. We need to bring that out and help them notice some things that they aren’t noticing on their own. You can craft strings using your rekenrek to focus on one of the concepts that kids are not as developed in around number sense.

Activity #3: Quick Images

Quick Images is just showing the rekenrek quickly and then making it disappear so the kids can no longer see it. When I’ve got the big teacher demo one, I’ll put a big Post-it paper over the top the rekenrek. I’ll show an amount and then put the paper back over the rekenrek so they can’t see it anymore.

How long you leave it up there is dependent upon your kids. If you have a group of kids who need a little bit longer, who are still in that counting phase, then you’ve got to leave it up a bit longer. But don’t leave it up long enough for them to count. Now they may still count, but as the year progresses you don’t want to leave it up there long enough for them to count. The point is to get away from needing the physical thing and being able to visualize.

I want kids to be able to close their eyes and visualize what I just showed them and use that visualization to figure out how many it was. So, doing quick images is a great way to do that. How quickly you show them and make them disappear depends upon the level of your kids and the amount. For example, I could show four a whole lot quicker, than I could if I was showing this eight. It just depends on the kids and the quantities you’re showing.

Activity #2: Show Me

Have them show you a particular amount. For example, I might say “show me eight.” and provide no other instructions. Some kids are going to count one by one, show eight along the top of the rekenrek. You might have other kids who think about eight as four on the top and four on the bottom. Others may see it as five on the top and 3 on the bottom. It’s really up to the kids how they visualize the number given to them.

.This builds their part-part-whole understanding allowing that kids to see all the different ways they can make eight. It also builds on their counting skills and if a child can count they can do this.

You could start challenge them by asking them to show a particular number using as few moves as possible. Do they show eight with one push of all the beads in a row or counting over every single bead that they’re pushing over? We want to encourage them to see it and push it over as a group, instead of pushing over one by one by one.

Activity #1: Modeling Story Problems

My top way to have kids use the Rekenrek to build their number sense is through modeling story problems. I am a huge fan of using story problems in mathematics from the time they start learning about math because it helps to put it in real-world context.

Any time you’re doing story problems kids should have Rekenreks at their disposal to be able to model them. It doesn’t matter what kind you use, even if you have to make them yourself, just get the kids using Rekenreks.

When modeling, there is no wrong or right way to use them. Let’s use an example of this story problem:

Sierra had three balloons, she blows up four more balloons, how many balloons does she have now?

Some of your kids might take their Rekenrek and they might count out three on top and four on the bottom, to figure out how many are in the problem. Some of your kids may go back and count one by one by one or even group three on both bars and add one more to one. it’s up to them and how they see it visually to solve the problem.

You may have other kids, who don’t put it like that at all, they might count out the three, whether they subitize it or they counted, and show the three and then they go to show four, in the same row, but won’t show the different parts. Then they will just push them together and figure out how many it is by counting them all.

Conclusion

Those are my top five ways to use a Rekenrek; just letting the kids play, doing number strings, doing quick images, have them show you the different ways to get an amount and modeling story problems. It doesn’t matter how they model it, whether they’ve got to count, whether they’re subitizing, showing on two rows or one row. It’s just important that you let them show it and that they figure out what makes sense for them.

The five activities I’ve provided should be a great starting point to get you using your rekenreks. Once again, there’s no right or wrong way to use them, just start using them.  I hope that this helps you build your math mind, so you can go out there and build the math minds of your students.  But, if you want even more rekenrek activities, check out the book I wrote all about how to Master the MathRack (aka rekenrek).