Kids will have fun creating these DIY Math Manipulatives.  They are perfect for teaching kids how to do double digit math. 

These will work as base 10 manipulatives, and can help kids visualize what is happening in double digit addition and subtraction problems, whether they are learning the “new” way or the “old” way.  

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Having objects to move around when learning to add or subtract can really help kids visualize what is happening.

Popular objects to use in math centers include bear counters, buttons, and tiny erasers.  

Your child may also enjoy using toy cars, mini figures, or other favorite items they have at home.  When working on early subtracting you can even use playdough and play Subtraction Squish.

DIY Math Manipulatives

Materials Needed:

• Pipe Cleaners (Chenille Sticks)
• Pony Beads
• Scissors

Cut the pipe cleaners into 2 1/2  to 3 inch (6 – 7.5 cm) long pieces.

Have your child string 10 beads onto each piece of pipe cleaner.   You can further challenge them by having them put the beads in a pattern.

Bend the ends of the pipe cleaner pieces to help keep the beads on.  

How to Use Homemade Math Manipulatives

Once you have your DIY math counters ready, use them for some hands-on math.

Get out 2 small plastic containers to hold your manipulatives.  

Put the pipe cleaner sets of 10 in one bowl.   Put a handful of single beads into the other bowl.  

One way to use the DIY manipulatives is to talk about place value in two-digit numbers.

Write a two-digit number on paper, or use a set of number cards like we did.  

Use the strands of 10 to represent the number in the 10’s place, and use the single beads to stand for the 1’s.  

For instance, in the photo below, there are 6 strands of beads to stand for the 6 in the 10’s place, and 3 single beads for the 3 in the 1’s place in the number 63.

Do this several times together until your child seems comfortable with the concept.  You can even stop to count each and every bead on your homemade manipulatives to prove you really have the same number of beads as the number.

There are so many ways to make math fun.  Another way to use your manipulatives is to work on counting by 10’s.   

As your child is counting by 10, line up the beaded pipe cleaner pieces — so there is one pipe cleaner with 10 beads for 10, two when they count 20, and so forth.  This is a great way for them to see what counting by 10’s really means.  

Of course these DIY math manipulatives are also great for helping kids visualize double digit math problems.

These are perfect for helping kids better visualize place value as well as what’s really happening when you add or subtract those double digit numbers.

Why spend money on expensive math counters when you can make your own?  For other ideas on how to make your own base 10 manipulatives, check out The Measured Mom.

More fun hands-on math ideas:

• Kinesthetic Math Activities
• Simple Hands-On Measuring Activity 
• Nerf Gun Math
• ABCs & 123s — Hands-On Learning Ideas 

Note:  This updated post originally was published November 28, 2014.

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When we started homeschooling this year I wanted to have some type of reward system in place.  At first I made a sticker chart where they could earn small rewards each week.

Then I came up with something a little more concrete:  our Reward Store.

I’ve found that having something more concrete that they can work towards is a HUGE motivator.

All of the items in our store were little things I had picked up at the dollar store and stashed away for a “rainy day.”  In the future, when our store needs restocked I might let them pick up items they’d like to earn.

I didn’t want to use real money for our store for several reasons.  So I came up with our own “store dimes.”

Our dimes are simple circles cut from aluminum foil.  The kids each have a “bank” to save their dimes in.

Each of the items in our store is labelled with a price written on masking tape.

I made sure to have small items (lollipops and other small candies) that are worth ten cents each (one “dime”).  This ensures that they can always purchase something at the end of class if they have given their best effort and earned that dime.

Other items range in price from 30 cent ring lollipops, to 50 and 80 cents and even a dollar (or 10 of our dimes) for the larger items.  I plan on increasing prices over time, making each reward take a bit longer to earn.

I also included a few shared rewards in our basket, like going for ice cream.  This way the kids need to work together towards a few of the rewards.

The reward store has been a big hit with both of my students!

Not only are they earning small prizes for good behavior and trying their best each day at school, but they are also learning so much from our store!

*  They are counting by tens.  (That’s why all our coins right now are dimes!)  The youngest has learned that if he wants the 50 cent Silly Putty, he needs to earn 5 dimes to buy it.  We go over counting our coins by tens at the end of each lesson to see how much is in the bank.

*  They are both learning to save their money for what they want to buy.  The candy may be tempting, but they know that if they want to earn that Lego set they need to have ten dimes.

*  They are learning to make good choices.  “If I buy the candy I will enjoy it for a little bit, but then it will be an extra day before I can buy that Silly Putty that will be fun to play with for a long time.”

*  They are learning patience.  That first day my youngest didn’t understand that he wasn’t getting a prize out of the basket every day.  Now his attitude is a lot different!

*  They are learning to work together.  Remember those shared rewards?

As an added benefit they aren’t always begging for a “little something” when we go to a store.

So far our reward store has only been associated with school, but I am thinking we may eventually tie it in with good behavior throughout the day.  Maybe earning one dime for school and having a chance to earn a second dime for completing chores and having good behavior the rest of the day.  (If we do that, those prices will definitely be increasing a bit!)

Do you have a reward system in place?

I’d love to hear about it!

The post Encouraging Good Behavior: Reward Store first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

I’ve mentioned before that my son likes to do things his way.  If I try to tell him how to write a letter the right way, he turns me off.  Tells me I am wrong.  Gets mad.  Let’s just say it isn’t pretty.

I’ve drawn a lot of dotted letters for him to trace, gotten a few workbooks — which he loves.  But then I started seeing this great idea pop up all over Pinterest:  Writing the letters or numbers with a highlighter is a lot easier than writing them in little dots or dashes, and a lot more fun for the little guy to trace!  (Have them trace the letters/numbers using a different color marker and watch the colors change as an added bonus!)

Then there are shapes.  He can make a pretty good circle by himself, but squares, rectangles, and everything else tends to look like a circle, too.

Of course, you could draw those in highlighter, too.  But the other day, as I was putting away our Play-Doh stuff, an idea hit me.

We have a bunch of cookie cutters in various shapes with our Play-Doh stuff, and they tend to not get used much.

What if we used them another way?

It’s funny.  As soon as he saw that I had “forgotten” to put the shapes away, he was super interested in Mommy’s idea.

He practiced tracing inside the cookie cutter shapes (we turned them upside down so they were easier to trace) over and over.  His pencil lines are super hard to see, but if you look hard, he has squares and triangles all over that paper!

Suddenly, learning how to draw shapes was a lot more fun!

Shared on Lemon Drop Pie,Ladybug Blessings, Someday Crafts, Milk and Cuddles, Works for Me Wednesday, Kids Activities Blog, Cheerios and Lattes, A Vision to Remember, Saturday Show and Tell, No Time for Flashcards, Creative Jewish Mom, I Heart Naptime, Sew Can Do, Delicate Construction, Sumo’s Sweet Stuff, Naptime Crafters

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Our Christmas quiet time bags were such a hit (seriously, every time I try to pack them up they get them back out), that I thought I’d make a couple Easter/spring ones to put in our quiet time bag rotation.

It was easy to recreate some of the original ideas from the Christmas bags into Easter themed items.  In our Christmas quiet time bags we had felt trees to decorate.  I used the same idea and made a couple felt Easter eggs with a variety of wiggly lines and polka dots that can be used to decorate the eggs.  They fit nicely in a sandwich bag, and could always be tossed into a purse or diaper bag to be used as a busy bag at a doctor’s office, etc.

Another thing we had in our Christmas bags that I decided to bring back was number cards.  In the Christmas bag we had colorful packages with numbers just waiting to be put in the correct order.  For the Easter quiet time boxes the kids helped decorate eggs out of card stock, which I later numbered 1-15.

I made a small matching game using card stock and a package of Easter stickers.  (For easy directions click here.)

To work on those fine motor skills I picked out some flower and egg-shaped beads I had to thread on a pipe cleaner.  (Do NOT give small children beads unattended!)

Then I added an old board book and a wind up egg that was in one of their Easter baskets several years ago and has somehow survived.

Because I hate to spend money if I don’t have to, I packed it all in an empty Pop-tart box, which I decorated with pictures they had colored in a bunny coloring book.

For our second box I started with something I added later to the Christmas bags: a little clothespin letter-matching activity.  I recreated it this time with Easter/springtime words.

I used card stock to write the words in lower case letters, making sure to space them out enough that the kids could the clip the corresponding capital letter clothespin to it.  I put a different word on the backs of each of them, giving them a total of 8 words to work with.

Wanting to put something in each box that had to do with numbers, I made a simple felt game with little Easter baskets, each with a number on it.  I then cut out some small felt eggs so they could put the right number eggs in each basket.  Again, it all fit nicely into a sandwich baggie and can be taken out as a busy bag if needed. 

Instead of the Christmas tree lacing card, I made an Easter egg version, using cardboard from an old cereal box and punching holes along the outside of it.  Ii added a piece of yarn tied to the top hole and it was ready to lace.

To finish the second box I also added a little chick “view finder” that one of the kids got in their Easter basket last year and a small pinball game I got this year at the dollar store.

This time it was all packed in an empty instant oatmeal box, again decorated with pages from the coloring book.

There you have it, 2 very easy to make Easter quiet time boxes, just waiting to be played with!

Have an idea of something I could add to them?  Leave me a comment!

The post Easter Quiet Time Boxes first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

It’s been a while since I posted about fun we’ve had with a book we’ve read…  Trust me, it’s not that we haven’t been reading, or that we haven’t been having some fun with our books!

Things have finally settled down around here, and this week I want to share one of my preschooler duo’s  favorites: The Berenstain’s B Book.

I admit it, it was one of my favorites as a kid, too.  I love when my daughter “reads” it to me.  (She has it memorized….)

This week we played with the Berenstains’ B Book.

During bath time I brainstormed words that started with the letter “B” with each of my preschoolers.  It seemed the more words I wrote on the wall, the more excited they got.  It was fun seeing what they each came up with.

Then we tried our hand at forming the letter “B.”

Not only did we practice writing it, but we also used sparkly pom-poms, yarn, pipe cleaners, and even a bag of colored game dice to form a variety of “B’s.”

Of course, we had to try walking backwards (in the book they bike backwards, but that wasn’t happening in the house) and blowing bubbles.

Finally, I set them on a letter “B” scavenger hunt, searching for objects that started with the letter “B.”  I had to give the 3 year-old a few ideas at first, but the 5 year-old?  She came back with quite a collection all on her own!

The reward, of course, had to start with a “B” — we had bears (Teddy Grahams).

My son is already asking if we can do the A Book next time….

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I’ve always loved those paint chip samples you can find in the hardware stores…  I remember collecting handfuls of them as a kid whenever I got a chance.

That love for the colorful strips hasn’t ended, and lately we’ve been having fun using them in some colorful learning activities.

The first thing we did with them was a simple color-matching activity.  (This would make a great busy bag to throw in your purse for toddlers when going to doctor’s appointments, etc.)  All you need are 2 matching strips.  Cut one strip and have your child match the colors to the colors on the strip that is left uncut.  You could put several sets in your busy bag to add to the difficulty level.

The next thing I made with paint chips was a fun ABC train.  For this you need a bunch of those large paint sample cards.  Cut one to look like a train engine and choose one uppercase letter to write on it.  The next “train car” will need the matching lowercase letter and another uppercase letter.  Continue this for as many letters as you want your train to have.

Since I have 2 preschoolers, I made 2 different trains.  Neither of them uses all the letters yet, but I can easily add more letters to each train as their skill level improves.  This makes matching upper and lower case letters up much more fun than typical flashcards or worksheets — my son especially loves his ABC train!

Finally, we have been using paint samples to work on word families.

I collected large paint sample strips (with 3 colors each) and coordinating longer paint sample strips to do this one.

On the large paint sample I wrote the last 2 letters of the word family I wanted to work on.  I also cut 2 slits to feed the longer paint strip through.  (I trimmed the strips down a bit first, making them a bit more narrow.)

On the longer strip I wrote one letter on each “square” of paint to create the words when threaded through the larger square.

Those are just a few of the things we’ve done with my collection of paint samples.

There are a few crafts I’d love to share, too…  But that’s for another post.

Have you gotten creative with paint samples?

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