Woohoo! I'm so excited! I ordered a starter set of base ten blocks and they arrived today. Owen is starting regrouping, and I got tired of trying to cut scraps of paper to make blocks, so I ordered a set.
I don't understand how children can learn regrouping and truly understand what is happening without these wonderful manipulatives. I'm sure children can memorize the procedure for regrouping, but then when they get to subtraction, they don't completely know when to regroup and when not to. These blocks make it concrete! I highly recommend them. In my teaching days, I couldn't live without them, and I wish they would have been around when I was learning regrouping as a child, it would have made much more sense for me back then.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Base Ten Blocks
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5 comments:
They are wonderful manipulatives. I liked unix cubes too-do they still make those?
Um, I'm going to be the dummy here. What's regrouping?
Hi, Anne Marie :) An example of regrouping with addition might be 27+18=
Always start in the "ones place" with 7+8. This equals 15 ones. Kids memorize the procedure of writing down 5 and "putting a one on top" (in the tens place). But they don't really understand that they are regrouping 10 of those ones into a "ten." It's important to really understand how to look at numbers that way when they learn regrouping with subtraction. For example, 34-16=
Start in the ones with 4 ones and try to subtract 6 ones. You can't because there aren't enough ones. So you need to regroup a ten into 10 ones. This is where kids memorize "cross out the 3 and put a 2 on top. Change the 4 into a 14" but they don't really understand why. Then they get confused and do that every time, even when they don't need to.
They might see 58-26=
If they don't understand tens and ones, they'd cross out the 5 and put a 4 on top and change the 8 into 18. I love base tens blocks because it makes those tens and ones (and hundreds and thousands) concrete. Once they understand with the blocks, they can start working without them. I actually SEE those blocks in my mind when I'm working with numbers in the hundreds and thousands. I move them around in my mind.
Hi Joanne :) They do still make unifix cubes and they are great!
Huh. Thanks for the explanation. Did we learn addition and subtraction that way? That doesn't even sound familiar. Or maybe it was just so long ago that I can't remember.
Oh, I wanted to let you know that the guy who made the Jawa costume answered your question about how he made the eyes. It's in the comments on that particular post. I think it's Part 4 of the photo shoot.
It just goes to show how different everyone is in their learning style. I have been watching my son go through this "regrouping" way of learnign math and have thought...this seems so much harder than just memorizing how to do it. I have been teaching him how to do it the "old fashioned" way here and there. So far he just says, "mom, that's now how the teacher says to do it..." but I thik he's getting it. I don't really like the whole idea of teaching it the new way --- to me, ther are some things that can't be improved upon. Phonics and math are two of them. The only way you really learn them is by rote memorization and drills...it's just the best way for many people. :-)
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