Review of Essential Math Manipulatives

Without the essential use of appropriate manipulatives in a classroom, many math concepts can be too
dbstract to begin to understand. Each concept can be explored alongside many manipulatives and other
resources, and it is important for all students to become familiarized with doing math hands on at a
young stage to build their confidence and the core knowledge of mathematics. Manipulatives should be
abundant in every classroom, in variety and in supply, and should be stored in an organized and
accessible manner so they can be readily available for all students to use. Manipulatives can and should
be incorporated in all Math lessons to help make math engaging, fun, and understandable.

1. Units, Base Ten, and Hundred blocks

Base ten blocks are of great value to the Elementary classroom and beyond, to help students
understand a large amount of math concepts throughout their schooling years. Students become very
familiarized with these manipulatives early on in their schooling, making them a useful tool they will be
comfortable using to explore and practice mathematical concepts. They can be used for number sense,
counting, adding, subtracting, place value, part/whole relationships, fractions, decimals, patterns and
more. They are an essential tool in every classroom and should be used as much as possible in order for
students to familiarize themselves and help make sense of Math. All students can benefit from these
manipulatives, and should not just be used for “extra help”, but as a important tool for understanding.

2. Pattern blocks

Working with different coloured pattern blocks of different shapes are a fun educational tool in the
classroom to assist teaching many different outcomes in Elementary school. Pattern blocks should be
plentiful in every classroom so students can each have a large set of different shapes and colours to
work with independently. They are essential for learning about the attributes, similarities and
differences of shapes, teaching about congruency and symmetry, patterns, area, perimeter fraction
representation, computation, tessellations, to name a few. Students can have fun making different
shapes and images with pattern blocks and a lot can be learned through time discovering.

3. Geoboards

From my experience both as a student and a teacher, geoboards can make some of very engaging and
memorable learning experiences in math. Students can use these in creative ways in geometry and can
be used to demonstrate understandings of many outcomes all across the elementary years. Students
can experiment with many concepts with geoboards such as learning about how shapes can be made up
of different parts, counting area and perimeter, learning angles, evaluating attribute sense and
terminology of shapes having students represent with them.

4. Hundred chart

An essential in every elementary classroom, students should become very familiarized with hundreds
charts and how they can help them with numbers in so many useful ways. The chart should be large,
with removable number pockets if possible, and in a place in the classroom that is easy to see from any
angle, so that students can glance at it when needed to help them with their work. Even having a small
hundred chart taped on each students desk can be a helpful tool especially in younger Elementary
grades. A hundred chart can assist students when learning to count, both forwards and backwards,
number order (removing numbers or having students put missing numbers back in the right spot is a fun
way to learn with the hundred chart). Adding, subtracting, and skip counting re also made much easier
with this classroom tool!

5. Fraction strips

Many will agree that one of the most challenging parts of learning Mathematics as a child was learning
fractions. When you learn why, it is usually because this concept was taught very abstractly without
much physical awareness. Seeing concrete representations when studying fractions and being able to
familiarize yourself with visual representations such as fraction strips can really help students. Seeing
how a whole can be broken up into different parts, and how fractions can be reduced and combined in
different ways to equal the same part is very engaging and can make all the difference in a students
learning of fractions.