Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Using Virtual Manipulatives to Strengthen and Extend Your Student's Math Learning

Using Virtual Manipulatives to 

Strengthen and  Extend 

Your Student's Math Learning


Enrichment Workshop for Parents of K-5 Students at Providence St. Mel School, Chicago

    Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Marsha Landau, Ph. D.      mathmarsha@gmail.com


Introduction to Virtual Manipulatives

We'll start by looking at a few of the virtual manipulatives that are included in the REVEAL Math e-Tools kit.

Note: Students should be able to see and access the etools, as soon as they log into their account. They can be found on the landing page. There is an eToolkit directly below the "To Do" list. After clicking on the eToolkit, they will see a menu that includes "Add eTools." When they select that, they are given an option of tools to use.


The complete list:




Today's focus, time permitting:

Base 10 blocks

    






















Geoboard

        Make fourths on the geoboard. Record here:
        



    
    (from a unit by Tom Scavo)



Pattern blocks
    










































Tangrams
    






Websites with many virtual manipulatives:

polyominoes; tangram; measuring tools; Tantrix tiles, under Patterns and Art; number tiles; multiplication grid; fraction bars and circles; algebra tiles; spinners; polyhedral dice; coordinate system; tables. There is a tutorial

geoboard; fractions; area/perimeter explorer; interactive clock; stopwatch; spinner (up to 9 regions); dice; coin flip; tangram; pattern blocks; scale; place value chart; hundreds chart; two color counters; color counters; graph color bars (Cuisenaire rods); graphs; cube; number line; calculator (4 operations only); thermometer (0-100 Celsius)

    Unifix cubes; ten-frames; number lines; two-color counters; color tiles; base ten blocks; math balance; dice; spinners; pattern blocks; geoboard; algebra tiles. 

fractions (fraction bars and fraction circles); geoboard; clock; money pieces; number frames; number line; number pieces (base ten blocks); pattern shapes (pattern blocks); partial product finder (multiplication arrays)

coins, counters, centimeter rods, Dienes (base ten) blocks, dice, fraction bars, geoboard, hundred square, pattern blocks, pentominoes, tangrams

Virtual Manipulatives for Elementary Math - YouTube 

start watching at 10:50, featuring Math Learning Center



at 24:30 doing addition

NCTM Illuminations


coin box and equivalent fractions manipulatives

among the apps: factorize; geometric solids; grouping and grazingadjustable spinner; Bobbie Bear; cube nets; concentration (match different representations of numbers, shapes, etc.); ten frame; area tool; cubes (for finding volume of a box); fraction gamehandshakes problem; bunny times

most give feedback to student--student can do this without the parent present

Coin box--some built-in tasks

Five Frame--for the little ones--show small numbers--lots of sound effects and audio support


Geogebra   at about 38:00 in the video

lots of tools posted by teachers

Video goes to a tool for adding fractions; use expand tool to find equivalent fractions that work to combine the fractions



how-to videos from The Math Learning Center  Each video is about 3 minutes
    The Number Line App (old video--website is now more user-friendly) shows how to use it; very clear!

For the geoboard there is a second video with updates explaining new tools. Very cool!

Pattern Shapes App (pattern blocks in the correct colors) drag, rotate, change color, duplicate, delete; blank workspace or square or isometric grid. Can choose silhouette outlines to fill in like a puzzle, or make your own (?). I can choose an outline, share the link, share the code, and everyone can try to fill it in with shapes.


Arithmetic Practice -- 4 basic operations







Saturday, March 20, 2021

Enrichment for Grades 2 and 3

 Tasks for exploring math that are likely outside the school curriculum


Task 1.    What can you do with 4 identical isosceles right triangles?

Go here: Mathigon Polypad.

Add four identical isosceles right triangles to the work space:


Explore what you can create when you place the triangles in such a way that they have a side in common.

For example, this is a hexagon:


Sketch your results. How many different designs can you make? 

Did you make a single triangle? a square? a non-square rectangle? a non-special parallelogram?  a trapezoid? 



Task 2.    Sharing a cake

Go here: 25-pin geoboard












Jessica pretended to make a cake in this shape on her geoboard:












Show all the ways she can "cut" the cake into two equal shares for herself and her brother James.



Task 3.    Towers

Go here: Unifix

Here are some examples of a unifix tower 5 cubes tall:












Find all the ways you can make a tower 3 unifix cubes tall when you have two colors, brown and yellow, available.

Then write a letter to a student who was unable to attend this session. Describe all of the different towers that you built that are three cubes tall, when you had brown and yellow cubes available to work with. Why were you sure that you had made every possible tower and had not left any out?




Task 4.     Tetris and beyond

Go here:  Color tiles

Explore the shapes you get when you put squares together in such a way that they have a whole side in common. The figure below shows two blue TRIOMINOES (composed of 3 squares) and two examples of green QUADRIMINOES (composed of 4 squares). Two shapes are the SAME if you can slide, flip, or turn one of them so it fits exactly on top of the other.




















Can you make any DIFFERENT triominoes from the two shown? What about quadriminoes? Sketch your findings.

Challenge: Make all the different PENTOMINOES that are possible. (Hint: There are more than 10.) Sketch your findings.