Manipulative Paper: Base Ten Blocks Learning Tool
Manipulative Paper: Base Ten Blocks
Base ten blocks are an exceptional learning tool for elementary and middle school students. They let students easily visualize addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division and offer an alternative way of viewing a problem and developing an answer. For the most part, base ten blocks can be extremely useful in the knowledge and skills portion of the TEKS. The number, operation, and quantitative reasoning section of the knowledge and skills portion of the TEKS offer countless lessons that could incorporate this hands on manipulative. Base ten blocks, like other manipulatives, allow students to physically use materials to conceptually learn our standard counting system. Children also grasp place value concepts more easily when they can touch and see the units. Most are made of wood, plastic, or foam and are easily accessible for teachers. Virtual manipulative sites have allowed students to work on base ten block activities from home and make learning math easier and more fun. As students reach fifth grade they begin to “use knowledge of the base-ten place value system to compose and decompose numbers in order to solve problems requiring precision, estimation, and reasonableness. By the end of grade 5, students know basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts, and are using them to work flexibly, efficiently and accurately with numbers during addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division computation” (TEKS). Base ten blocks are ideal in place value lessons. The fifth grade TEK (1) (A) includes place value to read, write, compare, and order whole numbers. Students can explore number meanings and their relationships while working with base ten blocks. They can use place value clues to build models of numbers and determine their value. Teachers can begin by modeling how many hundred blocks make a thousand by counting by one hundreds together. The teacher could continue by having
Base ten blocks are an exceptional learning tool for elementary and middle school students. They let students easily visualize addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division and offer an alternative way of viewing a problem and developing an answer. For the most part, base ten blocks can be extremely useful in the knowledge and skills portion of the TEKS. The number, operation, and quantitative reasoning section of the knowledge and skills portion of the TEKS offer countless lessons that could incorporate this hands on manipulative. Base ten blocks, like other manipulatives, allow students to physically use materials to conceptually learn our standard counting system. Children also grasp place value concepts more easily when they can touch and see the units. Most are made of wood, plastic, or foam and are easily accessible for teachers. Virtual manipulative sites have allowed students to work on base ten block activities from home and make learning math easier and more fun. As students reach fifth grade they begin to “use knowledge of the base-ten place value system to compose and decompose numbers in order to solve problems requiring precision, estimation, and reasonableness. By the end of grade 5, students know basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts, and are using them to work flexibly, efficiently and accurately with numbers during addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division computation” (TEKS). Base ten blocks are ideal in place value lessons. The fifth grade TEK (1) (A) includes place value to read, write, compare, and order whole numbers. Students can explore number meanings and their relationships while working with base ten blocks. They can use place value clues to build models of numbers and determine their value. Teachers can begin by modeling how many hundred blocks make a thousand by counting by one hundreds together. The teacher could continue by having