Skip to main content

Digital Math Manipulatives and Models

The use of manipulatives and models for math aid students in learning math conceptually. While physical manipulatives are great there are also a lot of math manipulative apps available.These math manipulative apps align well with the common core math standards and allow students to develop conceptual understanding of many math concepts.

Here are a few teachers and students have been using:

Virtual Manipulatives is a app from ABCya.com and provides both fraction bars and fraction circles. In addition to fractions, there are models for decimals and percents. The app includes an pen tool for annotating on the screen. In this lesson, the teacher and students were using the app to decompose both simple fractions and mixed numbers.



Virtual Manipulatives: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/virtual-manipulatives!/id471341079?mt=8

Number Pieces is from The Math Learning Center. There are two apps in this series:
Number Pieces and Number Pieces Basic. The apps both contain sets of Base Ten Blocks (ones, tens, and hundreds), and tools for annotating. The apps can be used for modeling a variety of problems. This teacher is using the app to model decimal division.



Number Pieces: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/number-pieces-by-math-learning/id605433778?mt=8
Number Pieces Basic:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/number-pieces-basic-by-math/id611452042?mt=8


Geoboard is also from The Math Learning Center and is one of my personal favorites. Students always love using Geoboards but mostly because of the the rubber bands. Now we have digital rubber bands! The app has been recently updated and a lot of new features added. In addition to the standard 25-peg board, you can change to a 150-peg board and a circular board on the iPad. There are also annotation tools and a text tool for writing equations and expressions.

The app can be used for learning about area, perimeter, fractions, the new circular Geoboard could help with learning about time, and much more.

     

The app is available for both iPad and iPhone: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/geoboard-by-math-learning/id519896952?mt=8

The Math Learning Center has other great apps for learning math. Check them out too. Many of their apps are available for IOS, Windows phones and tablets, or via the web.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Digital Science Fair Projects

At the end of the year, many of our schools hold school wide science fairs. Students plan Science fair project tri-fold display board and implement projects and then present the process and resulting data on tri-fold display boards much like this. One class decided to go green and do away with using display boards. They conducted their experiments and recorded the data but rather than create paper reports they used their iPads. Project Data Graphs The students took pictures and video and created graphs and other visual representations and imported those into the Explain Everything app. During the science fair, students brought their iPads to the school's multipurpose room and presented their projects to attendees right from the iPads. In addition to using digital tools, these students are also developing their listening, speaking, and presentation skills - all vital to college and career readiness.
Post a Comment
Read more

T. A. G. Strategy

We want our students to reflect on their own work but also to be able to give effective feedback to each other. This is true for writing, conversations, or digital work. It's tough for us as adults and even more difficult for our students - no matter the grade level. As we have started using Seesaw ( https://web.seesaw.me/ ) and its student Comment feature, I've seen lots of "I like ..." and "That's cool" comments. Not very meaningful. I recently came across this simple strategy called T.A.G: Tell, Ask, Give. An easy to remember acronym and a good way to get students started in making effective comments.  I've seen several variations but like these descriptors for the acronym: Tell - something you learned or was meaningful ("like" if they are specific about what they like) Ask - a question Give - a compliment or recommendation (depending upon the purpose for the comment) Download a pdf here . Here are some additional
Post a Comment
Read more

Holt Interactive Graphic Organizers

Check out these online graphic organizers from Holt: Holt Interactive Graphic Organizers The site has over 30 graphic organizers for a variety of tasks. Each graphic organizer is interactive and can be downloaded onto a computer with Adobe Reader and be filled out right on the computer. There are also Teaching Notes available with tips and lesson ideas for each organizer What we really appreciate is that they also work on the iPads! Using the "Open In" feature in an IOS web browser such as Safari or Chrome, you can import the graphic organizer into the Adobe Reader app and easily fill in the fields. Students can then take a screenshot of the completed graphic organizer to share with their teacher or import into another iPad project.
2 comments
Read more