Our Favorite Math Manipulatives

Math is one of the subjects that we spend a lot of time on, because my boys love it and practicing those facts is important. Growing up I hated math, it was all worksheets and memorizing facts. Don't get me wrong worksheets and memorizing facts is useful and we incorporate that into our math studies, but having lots of hands on manipulatives makes math fun for my boys.

So today, I wanted to share some of our favorite math manipulatives that we use a lot during our math lessons. You do not have to go out and buy any of these materials to make math fun. We've used things around the house like beans, cotton balls for counting and adding, cloths hangers, and rocks.
1. Counting bears and chain links is my toddlers favorite math material. He uses it to count and practice his one to one correspondence.

We will be incorporating these into our preschool curriculum for the next school year. 

2. We love playing math games with playing cards. I was excited when I found these large cards at the dollar tree.

3. Dice are the most used manipulative at our house. We have a variety of dice some from the dollar store and others from our local teacher supply store.

These are my favorite ones. Each large dice has a smaller dice inside which is perfect for challenging my older son. 

These are also good for rolling larger numbers

I shared these in my April homeschool favorites post. Large foam dice from the dollar tree, my toddler loves counting and rolling these dice. 

4. For our time unit we used a foam clock that I found at the dollar tree. Its big and surprisingly held up for the price I paid for it. 

5. My older son enjoys timing him self when he has mastered his math facts. We love using a windup clock timer from the dollar store and sand timers.

 

6. Dominoes is another math manipulative my boys love using. There are so many fun games that you can play with these. 

  

7. Erasers! Yes erasers are another fun math manipulative we love using around here. You can get really cute ones from your local dollar store. We have apples, penguins, earth shaped ones, and school bus erasers. 

8. Play money

9. Counters

We love using these as game pieces whenever we are playing a game that requires more than one player. You can also use them as counters to help with addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts.

That's it! Please remember that none of these are important for making math fun for your children. I have been collecting our manipulatives for some time now, and my boys really enjoy incorporating it into our math lessons.What are some of your favorite math manipulatives and games.

linked up with:
practical-mom