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