November 20th Class: Manipulatives

Today in class we were introduced to the wide variety of math manipulatives. As I think back to my school years I can’t help but wonder why we didn’t have access to these great resources. The only manipulative that I even recognized were the pattern blocks, but I can’t remember using them in the classroom. To my amazement there are lots of manipulatives we can use in the classroom, as well as lots of fun and interesting games to go along with them. The game that I found the most interesting was the one with the straws. In pairs we had to remove up to three straws each time and whoever got the last straw lost. This was a great game for students to express the different strategies they would use as they played. The other game which was lots of fun, but at times difficult, was the one where we had to make a square out of the different shapes given to us. I have to mention that our group was the first to finish!! We where also given a sheet of different animals that could be created from the shapes, I thought it was a great game.