Recently a visitor to this blog wrote, “I have not used manipulatives with instruction for quite some time. However, I am trying to build up my use of them once again. We really run our math class as centers and I want one to be an exploration of concepts via manipulatives. The only problem is I don’t have enough activity resources to support this. Any thoughts.” I thought this was another issue related to manipulatives that would be useful to explore. See my response below.
I am unsure what grade level you teach or how many children might be accessing these centers at any one time. However, I will take a stab at your question and describe how I’ve done this while working in a variety of K-5 teaching assignments. Math stations are a part of my math block about 2- 3 times a week. Their purpose is to reinforce and practice math concepts I have introduced in whole group lessons. The whole class participates in stations during this time, so I need enough activities to give some choice to a class of 24 students on average. I have found 10 stations to be a good number. Students organize their completion of the different station activities using math station contracts. They consist of games or activities students participate in that utilize manipulatives in many of them. Go to: http://www.octm.org/jcooke/GBSD%20Align/CORE.htm to see examples of math station contracts I’ve used in the past. These station contracts are aligned to our state core standards for each grade level (K-5). 4th and 5th grade and literature lists aligned to these standards are found on this site as well. The page is not complete yet but I hope to have it done sometime this summer.