A Positive Outlook on Math Manipulatives
Math manipulatives have been around for years, but are now becoming increasingly popular amongst educators. Math manipulatives include anything from buckets of pattern blocks, trays of tiles, and colored cubes to virtual manipulatives, or manipulatives colored and cut out by the students themselves. All of these materials can help assist in tangibly teaching children math concepts and by pulling math off the page and into the hands of students. For a child to be verbally and physically taught a math concept allows them to think, reason, and solve problems with the teacher's guidance as well as on their own. Manipulatives can be used in lower levels by children making up stories with numbers that use a certain number of blocks to learning decimal places and place value in older grade levels.
It is important for the teacher to show how manipulatives relate to the lesson. The difference between a manipulative and a toy needs to be clearly drawn out for the children. Ground rules for using manuplatives need to be laid out as well. Since some manipulatives may be costly and the money for them may sometimes come right out of the teachers own pocket, a sense of respect toward the teacher and manapulatives needs to be established. Manipulatives need to be looked upon by the students as a privilege. They do need to have fun with them though and, most of all, they need time to explore on their own with the manapulatives to get used to the idea of them.
Variety and number of manipulatives are good. Many different lessons may require many different types of manipulatives or a large number of manapulatives. Costly manipulatives may not always be necessary. Manipulatives can be made by the...
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Burns, Marilyn. "7 Musts for Using Manipulatives," Scholastic.com/Illustrator (June 1996), 1-2.
Math Teachers Press. 2005. "Manipulatives are Key." http://www.movingwithmath.com/summer_math/manipulatives2.htm
Region Ten Mathematics. 2006. "Why Do They Play With Blocks?"
http://users.ntplx.net/~region10/regiontenmathpages/region10mathsitefaq/whyplaywithblocks.html
Burns, Marilyn. 2006. "Manipulatives in Today's Classroom" http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/instructor/letter.htm
Prekindergarten instructional games and activities can be used to increase the students understanding of number invariance. Using dice games, rectangular arrays, and number puzzles would be an effective method of presenting subitizing to this grade level. In addition to visual pattern, these young students would benefit from auditory and kinesthetic patterns as well.
Van de Walle, J., , F., Karp, K. S., & Bay-Williams, J. M. (2010). Elementary and middle school mathematics, teaching developmentally. (Seventh ed.). New York, NY: Allyn & Bacon.
The second class is Ms. Novak’s algebra. Ms. Novak. Ms. Novak starts her class off with group warm ups to get the students ready for class. Once the class is done with the warm ups, the class moves into the class exercise for the day. The students are learning two-step equations with manipulatives. First, Ms. Novak uses cups and chips as a manipulative to teach the students how to distinguish variables and numbers in a math equation. As a way of showin...
A key aspect of developing skills in maths is that the purpose of it is understood and that they can go on to apply this to real life situations i.e. to solve problems, to process information, to check answers, to interpret data, charts and diagrams, the understanding of money and how to manage finances, to use in practical every day activities. Mathematical skills are therefore developed in the earliest stages through practical work, which provides a child with a grounding in various aspect of maths such as shape, pattern, counting, sorting etc. these basic skills are then built upon as a child progresses..
McKenzie, T. L., Alcaraz, J. E., Sallis, J. F., & Faucette, F. N. (1998). Effects of a physical education program on children's manipulative skills. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 17, 327-341.
...ts work on the lessons independently or with a preservice teacher by using manipulatives or other mathematical tools it will allow them to fully grasp the concept that is being taught so they can do well in the long run of learning more complex mathematics.
middle of paper ... ... If the child chooses to play with a certain toy, then that choice can be used to teach a skill” (Stahl). One example of this is if a child likes to play, and the lesson is about certain colors, then the child can play, and while the child is playing, the teacher will ask the child what color the toy is. This will help the child learn and understand the color.
Breaking down tasks into smaller, easier steps can be an effective way to teach a classroom of students with a variety of skills and needs. In breaking down the learning process, it allows students to learn at equal pace. This technique can also act as a helpful method for the teacher to analyze and understand the varying needs of the students in the classroom. When teaching or introducing a new math lesson, a teacher might first use the most basic aspects of the lesson to begin the teaching process (i.e. teach stu...
Skemp, R (2002). Mathematics in the Primary School. 2nd ed. London: Taylor and Francis .
...ett, S. (2008) . Young children’s access to powerful mathematical ideas, in English, Lyn D (ed), Handbook of international research in mathematics education, 2nd edn, New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 75-108.
The early acquisition of mathematical concepts in children is essential for their overall cognitive development. It is imperative that educators focus on theoretical views to guide and plan the development of mathematical concepts in the early years. Early math concepts involve learning skills such as matching, ordering, sorting, classifying, sequencing and patterning. The early environment offers the foundation for children to develop an interest in numbers and their concepts. Children develop and construct their own meaning of numbers through active learning rather than teacher directed instruction.
Many students view mathematics as a very difficult subject since it does not only focusses on numbers but also in letters. Mathematics does not only require the students to come up with an answer but it also requires them to show the solutions on how they arrived at the answer. While in elementary, students were already taught on how to solve problems in a step-by-step procedure starting with what is asked in the problem, what are the given, make a number sentence or formulate an equation and solve the problem. These procedures are called problem-solving which cannot only apply in mathematics but also in other areas such as in Science, businesses and most
...nd dynamic changes in the competitive nature of the job market, it is evident to myself that being eloquent in all aspects of numeracy tools and knowledge is imperative in the 21st Century. The calculator is one such tool for children which supports mental computation to check answers to develop independent learning, as discussed earlier. It also fits into the pre-operation developmental stage of a child to enhance their symbolic thinking, similar to that of an adults scheme of thinking, as opposed reliance on senses alone. The interviews further grounded my reasoning around my argument and allowed me to not only gain an insight to how those similar to me think and those not so similar. This investigation has strengthened my argument that the use of calculators in the primary school classroom, if used appropriately, are an invaluable tool for teaching and learning.
In the classroom teachers need to be flexible to put in to practice many different
Using aids. The use of modern aids such as cut outs, models and even life like or scaled replicas are means to a better learning graph. With the use of these modern equipment and ways, a child will surely develop better both mentally and physically.