Manipulative Essay

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Using manipulatives in the classroom is an amazing way for kids to not only explain, but also show their thinking and cognitive skills. Throughout my observation of this assignment there were several manipulatives used in the centers as well as lesson plans at the schools I observed at. Manipulative play is easy to set up and can happen indoors or out. The definition of a manipulative would be physical objects that are used as teaching tools to engage students in the hands-on learning. They can be used to introduce, practice, or remediate a concept. It is highly important that schools and childcare centers incorporate this type of learning into their programs. A manipulative may be as simple as grains of rice or as sophisticated as a model of our solar system or even blocks for math. Concrete models can also be very beneficial to a child’s understanding when using manipulatives, due to the fact that help with real situations they may possibly encounter. The manipulatives I saw in the classrooms would be blocks, bears, straws, a rug chart, as well as colored sticks. Majority of these items were used for either counting or sorting. According to Caston Cain, “All aspects of manipulatives practice fine motor skills from picking up pieces to stacking, snapping together and even taking …show more content…

“As children grow and develop, they move through six stages of play, though they may not progress in a linear fashion.” (Cecchini) For this part of this assignment my objective was to observe the kids playing in the Parten’s type of play. Sociologist Mildred Parten discovered there are six types of play that a child will take part in, depending on their age, mood and social setting( 2015,Rock). These type of play would include; uncopied, solitary, solitary, onlooker, parallel, associative, cooperative. The list below will describe the types of play I noticed in the child development

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