DIY Math Manipulatives

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  • December 17, 2010 at 10:30 pm
    MamaSnow
    Participant

    Anyone have any creative ideas for DIY math manipulatives, specifically something along the lines of Base 10 blocks?  We have been using beans for 1’s and 10 beans glued to a popsicle stick for 10’s, but the beans fall off the popsicle sticks all the time, even after dh glued them with epoxy!  It’s driving both dd and I a wee bit crazy.  But a commercial set of Base 10 blocks is $31 on Amazon – surely there’s some less-expensive way we can get what we need.  We are only using 1’s and 10’s at the moment, but it would be good to be able to easily expand the same materials into the hundreds when we get to that point.  Thanks ladies!

    Jen

    December 17, 2010 at 11:16 pm
    Sara B.
    Participant

    We use Unifix cubes ourselves that I found at a yard sale a very long time ago.  But I saw a lot of stuff on Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=unifix+cubes&x=0&y=0

    December 18, 2010 at 12:57 am
    Tanya
    Participant

    These aren’t very 3-d, but they work:  I glued a piece of graph paper onto a piece of cardstock (the graph paper had 1 cm squares).  I then cut the graph paper cardstock into 1X10 strips for the 10’s and 10X10 for 100’s.  I know it isn’t the most glamorous, but it worked very well for us.  Bonus:  you can make as many as you want!  (and they don’t take up much storage space!)

    When I wanted to show a thousand, we counted out 10 of the 100’s and then paperclipped them together (as that was the only thing paperclipped, it was pretty obvious).

     

    Although I have never done this, I’ve heard that some people bundle things such as toothpicks with a rubber band to represent the 1’s, 10’s and 100’s.

    Another idea is to use beads:  one bead is obviously 1, then string 10 beads onto a string and tie ends together like a bracelet to represent 10’s, etc.  Down side:  you’re going to end up needing a lot of beads…

    -Tanya

    December 18, 2010 at 1:26 am
    laurap
    Participant

    Once we used a couple pieces of 4×4 cut 4 inches long to make the 100’s cube.  I  had hubby cut it and I painted it with craft paint and drew the grid on each side.  We also got a long, skinny square piece of wood (like some sort of trim) at Home Depot and made 10’s and 1’s.  It was a lot of tiny cutting but it was cheap and we had fun painting them????  We had the 4×4 laying around from a landscaping project or something so that was free???

    December 18, 2010 at 7:16 pm
    ruth
    Participant

    I made the montessori type number rods with dowels I got at Ace Hardware for a couple of dollars.  I just measured one inch, cut, then two inches, cut, etc. up to 10.  I then painted them with the alternating blue and red colors to see the number increments.  You could do the same thing with just ones and tens.

    December 18, 2010 at 11:26 pm
    Melody F.
    Member

    Here are a couple of links you might want to check out: 

    http://www.printable-math-worksheets.com/support-files/base_ten_blocks_template.pdf

    http://www.mason.gmu.edu/~mmankus/Handson/manipulatives.htm

    I also recommend searching Montessori websites as they usually have some free printables for math manipulatives that might be helpful even if you aren’t using them in a Montessori way, if that makes sense!

    Hope this helps!  🙂

    December 19, 2010 at 4:07 am
    baileymom
    Member

    Pre-Math U See, we used craft sticks.

    Ones in an empty jelly jar marked ‘Ones.’  When we reached 10, we bundled with a rubberband, and put the bundle in a shoebox marked ‘Tens,’ until we reached 100.

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