Manipulatives Work With Online Learning, Too!

Have any math manipulatives hanging around your house?

After all these years of homeschooling, I do! Years ago, I contemplated tossing these out, as we have a small house and lack storage. However, something made me hang on to these. Now I am so glad I did!

I was reading a teacher's blog on how to teach the rules of multiplying and dividing integers. Everyone knows the old "multiply a positive by a positive, get a positive; multiply a positive by a negative, get a negative" rules.

However, when I was a student, I understood to follow these little "rules" and usually did well, but I always wanted to know the "why" behind these rules. I was not explained why these rules are what we do; what makes these rules work. This produced in me the ability to do math well, but only up to a certain grade level. I started having trouble when doing math I couldn't "see" to understand.

This brings me back to reading this teacher's blog and enjoying the explanation provided behind these rules. (Read for yourself at this link:  Math Blog) I was wondering how I could use this lesson in the online learning format. Well, I thought of my set of handy dandy manipulatives! I started building with them and taking photos to build my pdf for the whiteboard. I can also use these when teaching, by holding them up to the camera. Kids using online learning love visual aids just as much as classroom kids do.

Online learning does provide some challenges in how to teach certain concepts when you don't have your student right there with you. However, what teacher doesn't love a challenge? Use the problem-solving nature that is instinctive in you as a teacher and come up with things as simple as using these really old (but still colorful!) manipulatives.

Keep learning so you can keep teaching!

~TutorJuls