Manipulatives

Describe a manipulative, game and an activity (non-game) in math that you have used or considered using in class.  What are it's benefits & drawbacks? What standard does it support?

I have found that telling time is one of the most difficult and often a lacked skill in the grade span I teach K-7. Elapsed time of often a foreign subject matter to my students when entering my classroom for the very first time. It is heart breaking to hear my students say that they have a court case in six months to permit them to find a new foster family and they believe that they will be “home” for Christmas (which is only a little over two months from now). I use several manipulatives, games, and activities to reinforce the concept in my class.

Although this learning concept is not explicity found in every grade level from K-7 the concept of time it is within the Ohio Academic Content Standards- Extended. The K-2 standards range from:

MD.K2.7c Identify events that happen in the morning (a.m.) or afternoon/evening (p.m.).

MD.K2.7b Tell time to the nearest hour on digital and analog clocks.

MD.K2.7a Tell time to the nearest hour and half-hour intervals on digital and analog

clocks.

The 3-5 standards range from:

MD.35.1c Use a schedule to determine the order of events.

MD.35.2c Identify whether an event happened in the morning, afternoon or evening.

MD.35.1b Tell time to the nearest 30 minutes.

MD.35.2b Solve word problems involving addition of time intervals in 30 minutes.

MD.35.1a Tell time to the nearest 15 minutes.

MD.35.2a Solve word problems involving addition and subtraction of time intervals

in 15 minutes.

Bamberger, Oberdorf, and Scultz-Ferrell describe a failry common misconception with telling time in the Math Misconceptions text among eight year olds- understanding how many minutes are in an hour. The authors state that “many eight year olds thought that there were a hundred minutes in an hour, rather than sixty” (page...