Math Mats

Home

Chat

Blogs

Collection

Directory

Home : 2001 : July : 14

Math Mats
By Vanessa Crawford

Hi Dana,

I am sure that there are many different typs of math mats. I bought some last summer (before entering my first full year of teaching). They were plastic type coated and had a forest on one side and a lake on the
other. they came with a page of paper manipulatives which you could color and copy, however, I cose these because I have teddy baers (forest) and green turtle (lake) manipulatives in my classroom. When I arrived at the school, the grade three teacher who had taught grade one for years and years gave me these little ones that were laminted. they were pink on one side with one big blob drawn

on it (subtraction) and blue on the other with two big blobs drawn on them (addition. We used these all year. The colored ones for adding and subtraction sheets (we used counters as maniplulatives) and the lake and forest one for "math stories" as a more of a center/fun approach to learning. I hope I have helped.

Oh, by the way, grade two could definitly benefit from using these. Out of my 20 kids who are going into garde two this year, around eight of them could not even begin to do math without using some form of manipulation (the had trouble counting on, could not add sums bigger than ten with their fingers etc.)

Math mats are an excellent tool for kids to use and my children did not tease the others who used them. I stressed that everyone figures things out differently and this is exactly what occured in my classroom (and any classroom I am sure) Some used the number line on the wall, some could count on, some used manipulatives, some used doubles, and one more and other strategies. It was exciting to see all of the growth.

Hope I have helped!!

Vanessa