Tuesday Math

We were given some new school materials from some friends of ours this week. We have new reading materials, from Abeka first readers, that I believe we will use along with progressive phonics (maybe). A complete set of Rod & Staff Reading for levels 1 – 6, well I have to order the level 1 handbook.

Today we explored the math manipulatives that they gave us.

This is a 300 piece Linking Cubes. Being different colors one can use a color to represent the unit 1, put a different color together to represent the unit 5, and so on. A great tool for teaching grouping and beginning addition and subtraction.  We used our Number 0-25 flash cards with the Linking Cubes today.

I laid out all the picture cards from 0 through 25 across the floor. Selena then had to place the coordinating number below each picture. I took this a step further and incorporated the Linking Cubes. Selena did great with 0 – 4. We used the white cubes to represent the unit 1.

When we got to 5 I laid out 5 white cubes and one yellow rod which had 5 cubes in it. We examined the yellow rod and counted the number of cubes. Selena came to the conclusion it would be easier to just use the yellow rod instead of counting out the 5 white cubes. She proudly placed that on the picture of 5 cars.  We proceeded from there and Selena quickly picked up on the idea of using the yellow rods then adding the correct number of white cubes to make the numbers up to 9.

When we got to 10, we compared 10 white cubes with 2 yellow rods to one orange rod that consisted of 10 cubes. Selena quickly jumped to the conclusion that it was easier to use the one orange rod instead of 2 yellow rods or 10 white cubes.

Selena easily made the transition to covering the two sets of 5 in the pictures with the orange rod and then adding the correct number of white cubes to finish the numbers. When we got to 15 without even thinking about it Selena grabbed an orange rod and a yellow rod to finish her number line.

She got tired at this point, but I was quite proud of how quickly she picked this concept up. We will continue to use these in our math. Selena loves them, and in my opinion they are a great manipulative to start teaching early math.