Math Toolkits for Students — More Stuff to Add (part 3)

There are more items that can be added to the toolkits for students, but these I will separate by primary (gr 1-3) and intermediate (gr 4-7) levels. Again, it is hard to just mention the contents without going into activities that use the tools to help students build mathematical understanding. Hopefully the tool itself will prompt you to think about some ways to use it. Primary Tools:

• 25 chart, laminated (usually created in 5 rows of 5)
• blank 5-frame (with spaces big enough to put counters on)
• blank 10-frame
• blank double-10-frame (two blank 10-frames on one card)
• set of filled in 10-frames (1-9, multiple 10’s)
• bead bracelet (10 beads in two colours, 5 of each) to be worn draped over the fingers so the beads can be manipulated. Two bracelet may be worn to use for numbers in the teens.
• large flattened paper plate or cut out paper circle for making dot plate configurations with bingo chips
• mini bags of small coloured wooden sticks or other small materials for patterning
• teeny-tiny Hundreds Tens and Ones (HTO’s) — miniature place value pieces cut out of large plastic canvas (found in crafting stores)
• place value cards — overlapping cards that show, for example, 425 can be pulled apart to reveal 400, 20 and 5 (click on image above to print)

Intermediate Tools:

• booklet of mini 100 charts to be coloured in to show multiples (x2, x3, x4, etc.)
• metre tape (purchased or created by taping photocopied paper lengths together)
• fraction-bar card (a card with a fraction bar in the middle — students use numeral cards to place as the numerator and denominator)
• fraction percent circles (two different coloured circles partitioned off in hundredths each cut along one radius and then placed together so they “spin” over each other to show different percent values)

As you can see, there are many things that can be used as “tools” in the teaching of mathematics. Creating a toolkit with students is a wonderful way to make lessons engaging. Mathematically yours, Carollee