As a Charlotte Mason educator, I use manipulatives to teach hands-on math and my children have loved learning basic math this way. We start with addition and then work through subtraction and then multiplication, and even division. As I'm preparing for my son's learning boxes, I wanted to be sure I had plenty of manipulatives for his hands-on math, considering it has been several years since I taught this age.
A Collection of Manipulatives to Teach Hands-on Math
Things Around the House
There are some good things around the house (or most houses) that would work great manipulatives.
- Beans
- Pasta
- Cars – check out my printables on Teaching with Cars
- Legos
- Blocks
- Coins
Good Things to Purchase
I love to have some store bought manipulatives because it brings excitement into a lesson when things are colorful.
- Animal Counters
- Transportation Counters
- Snap Cubes
- Color Counters
- Color Square Counters
- Color Dice
- Number Tiles
- Tub of Money
- Student Clock
- Stamp Clock
- Giant Magnetic Base Ten
- Fraction Tower Activity Set
- Rainbow Fraction Tiles with Tray
- Rainbow Fraction Circles
- Rainbow Fraction Squares
Why not put a little fun in math and add manipulatives to your homeschooling routines?
