Using math manipulatives with the primary goal of helping students get correct answers is probably the biggest misconception I see among teachers about manipulatives. And it’s why they’re often used ineffectively in the classroom. When “solving” is the goal, it makes sense that students would struggle when we take the manipulatives away... They no longer have access to the tool they relied on to get the answer! But when we use math manipulatives as a tool to build understanding (different primar

During our homeschool journey math has been such a tricky subject for us. It’s not my personal favorite to teach and it is not a subject my older two children naturally excel at. We have tried the gamut of math curricula and finally have settled on one for the foreseeable future. I think math in the early years should be hands-on and play-based, but once a strong foundation was laid, I was comfortable switching to something the kids can do more independently. Our previous math curriculum require