We’ve been homeschooling for over 6 years now. During that time, I’ve found products that I loved and some that didn’t quite hit the mark. Here’s a roundup of some of my favorite math manipulatives.
Counting Bears with Cups – These are awesome for counting and sorting. You can even work on patterns by setting the bears up in different color orders. We’ve had our set for years and have used it with all of our children.
Learning Cubes – These are great for learning patterns and colors for younger ages and as the kids get bigger, you can continue using them with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. My oldest is about to start 6th grade and we are still using them in fractions and such! Probably one of our most used items.
Wooden Pattern Blocks – These were always one of my favorite things to play with in school. You can make some fun patterns with them!
Learning Geoboard – You can use these to learn about shapes, area, perimeter, and they are a ton of fun for kids as well. Really cool to make designs!
Learning ResourcesFraction Tower – These connective blocks help immensely with learning fractions. With some kids it’s hard to picture fractions on the page. It’s easier when you have something to actually touch. Even better, it shows the decimals and percents.
Double Dice – I actually had no idea about Double Dice until another homeschool mom friend showed them to me and told me how she uses them. I was amazed at all the ways they can be used! For example, give one child a double dice. They roll the dice and whatever the dice comes to, they have to do a math problem. Keep going until they have created and solved 20 or so problems. For example, the outer dice is 5 and the inner dice is 2. 5+2=7. Or for older kids do multiplication, 5×2=10. Love this!
Do you have any favorites that I haven’t mentioned? Leave a comment and tell me about it! I’m always open for checking out new stuff!
