Using, Storing, and Managing Math Manipulatives

 I am passionate about teaching math, most especially with Littles. I myself love math. A seven year old is a very imprecise tool with which to do math, and can be particularly baffling, for a lover of math. But the thing is, is that the most profound mathematics are introduced and mastered with 5, 6, 7, and 8 year old kids. The number system, relative magnitude, every operation, geometry, relationship and comparisons,  problem solving and logic...it's the same math that underpins algebra, trig, and calculus...it's the same math that underpins engineering, architecture, and balancing your checkbook. It's deep, important, and complex.

Students have access to these tools at any time. They can come here and get a "scoop" of counters or a stick of unifix cubes, anything they think will be helpful...even when I don't believe it will. True story, I bite my tongue a lot.

The new Common Core Standards are, necessarily, imperfect. But if they do nothing else, they elevate the DOING of math to the importance typically reserved in elementary schools for the LEARNING of math. Math so often happens to kids. They are expected to learn math by watching teachers do math. They are often taught discrete rules and procedures in order to get them through arithmetic, without ever developing their sense of being mathematical. When I was a math coach/specialist for my district, it never ceased to amaze me how little cognitive lifting kids were being asked to do in math class. Teachers, pressured to the point of breaking by NCLB (No Child Left Behind, or as we call it, No Teacher Left Standing) requirements, often shied away from problem solving and cleared a path through story problems wide enough to march their whole class across without ever giving kids room and space to struggle and grow mathematically.

I ask myself: would I try to teach reading by never giving a kid a book to read? To me it is the same thing. I can't fathom trying to teach math without giving kids a problem to solve.
 

I moved into a classroom with very little storage this summer, and I invested in these white buckets ($7 with lids at Home Depot) to provide additional math tool storage and seating at our writing center (shown) and reading table.

The eight Standards for Math Practices all start with the words mathematically proficient students to describe how students (people) behave when doing math. The fifth Math Practice is about choosing tools. It's not just about breaking out the base ten blocks to show kids how to make exchanges for the regrouping procedure in subtraction. In fact, research has shown that when teachers decide which tool to use, and how to use it, the students experience the tool as one more set of rules they have to memorize...instead of contributing to the true goal of conceptual understanding.

Making sure my students have access to a variety of tools, as well as promoting a culture of understanding where students are asked (no, required) to pick their own tools and make sense of those tools in a variety of contexts...this is no small undertaking. The pictures above show how I store the math tools.

In the beginning of the year, we spend time introducing the tools. Partly to make sense of them, and partly to outline expectations. We do a "what does it look like and sound like when we are using our math tools" anchor chart.

During the first five days, I put out a tray of different manipulatives each day on each table group. Go to town! We focus on behaviors and procedures for sharing and putting away the tools.

Finally, when they have "met" the tools, the are each assigned a "math bag". Over the years that I have been doing this, it has evolved from a gallon ziplock back stuffed into an already crammed desk to this arrangement, which I'm calling AWESOME. I used a sheet to make 32 drawstring bags. Nothing fancy. Cut rectangles out of the sheets, folded over the top to make a casing for the drawstring ribbon, then folded over the rectangle in half and sewed along the bottom and open side (don't close the top, you have to feed through the ribbon). PRO TIP: once you've run the ribbon through the casing, bring both ends together and tie them into a single knot. You are welcome! ;) These were considerably smaller in past years, I just this summer redid them. Improvements: they are bigger than the last ones, by twice.

 Also improved: I used little 3M tape mounted wall hooks to create a storage area under the whiteboard. It was fun when the bags spilled out of their desks and pieces flew across the floor two to six times a day but, alas, all good things must end. Each bag space is labeled with a student number (1 to 32, I number my students from the time they walk in the door. With a 35% mobility rate, we remain in alphabetical order usually no later than October. By then there's been movement, but when you come in, you just get the last person who moved's number. It means Montse Rivera is going to end up being number 2, ahead of Luis Chavez, but pay that no mind. Number order please!)

 The labels on the bag space now match the numbers I put on each bag. I used puffy fabric paint that comes in a tube and I freehanded the numbers. Because I'm a gangster like that. haha

Students use these bags during the math time. If they need more or different tools than what are in the bags, they can get it from the bins or buckets. Like Crystal here, who was counting out 60 pencils for her story problem...by counting each 10-stick as one pencil...at the beginning of third grade. Ayyyyy....my aching head.

 When Crystal told me she needed more ten sticks, what I thought was, "No you don't. You need 6 of them." What I said was, "Sure, they are over there." And then I made a mental note that half my class was just like her, and I had some place value work to do. Ahem.

In my second grade class, each math bag has: 40 ten sticks, 25 unit cubes, 25 red and yellow counters, 40 unifix cubes, 40 square tiles, and a die (for centers and games). I'm pretty sure it's exactly the same thing they had in third grade last year...maybe they had 60 square tiles.

Also available in the bins and buckets: more of all those, plus hundreds flats, thousands cubes, cuisenaire rods, fraction pieces (strips and circles), atrribute blocks, centimeter and inch cubes, plastic coins, and pattern blocks.

Available at all times in baskets around the room: rulers, measuring tapes, protractors, ten frames, and balance scales.

It's a process. We go back to review/reteach how to store and take care of our manipulatives regularly. But of all the things I've done in the last years as a teacher to open up the world of mathematics to my students, this is up at the top. So worth the aggravations and inconveniences!