Math Manipulatives

If you aren't a teacher, you may not know about math manipulatives, but they are EVERYWHERE on math curriculum sites and homeschooling sites. What are they? Basically, they are things you can count, arrange into patterns, and use to physically demonstrate math concepts. We made some of our own this week, and I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed playing with them.
First, we laminated and cut out shapes to use to form patterns. For laminating, we used Con-Tact paper, which is my new favorite thing. We also laminated a page from Simon's math book with those same shapes on it, so they can practice matching up the cut-outs onto the page.
Next, we made colored macaroni noodles. All you do is toss a cup or so of dried pasta with 1/4 cup of vinegar and 10-20 drops of food coloring and spread it out on a tray to dry. You can glue the pasta onto paper in different patterns, use the noodles for counting, adding, subtracting, etc., or if you're really patient and use big noodles, you can make them into bracelets and necklaces.

See, manipulative can be a GOOD thing!