Base Blocks

In my last blog post, I  talked about Mrs. Glosser's Math Goodies, a computer-based website whose goal is to help teachers teach math,  and help students learn math! In this blog post, I am going to be talking about a virtual manipulative that teachers could use to help teach math and help students learn math!

I explored the  National Library Of Virtual Manipulatives website. This website, as it's name implies, shares numerous virtual manipulatives that teachers could use to assist them in the classroom. After viewing this website, I decided to look at some of the virtual manipulatives that were available to help with number & operations. While searching, I noticed that one of the virtual manipulatives, base blocks, was a manipulative that would be useful for students in grades Pre K-8! Since base blocks could be used to help students in a large grade range, they seemed like the perfect manipulative to focus on for my blog!

The purpose of this blog post is to explain how the base blocks virtual manipulative is supported by state standards and how they can be integrated into a classroom to enhance student's learning!

Virtual Base Blocks

The Uses' of Base Blocks/ How Base Blocks Enhance Student Learning:

• Base blocks "provide maximum flexibility for the teacher in teaching place-naming in different bases and different numbers of decimal places" (Utah State University).
• "Base blocks representations can be very helpful in developing mental images of numbers, place value, and operations" (Utah State University). 
• Base blocks are "useful in illustrating grouping rules. Ask students to describe the rule that determines place value. For example, when you have 12 units in the blocks column, you must make a group of ten and drag it into the 10's column. The associated rule might be described as "You can only have 9 things in a column. When you add a 10th thing, you need to make a trade up"" (Utah State University). 
• Base blocks can help students sort by attributes. One of the activities on this site, ""Sort and group blocks" ask the user to put units, longs, flats, and cubes into their proper columns and groups and move them as needed when there are too many in any given column" (Utah State University). 

Watch the video below to see how someone used the base block virtual manipulative to help a kindergarten class learn to add and subtract!

State Standards Supported by Base Blocks Virtual Manipulative:

• Pre-K–2 Expectations: In pre-K through grade 2 all students should–

count with understanding and recognize "how many" in sets of objects;

use multiple models to develop initial understandings of place value and the base-ten number system;

• Grades 3–5 Expectations: In grades 3–5 all students should–

understand the place-value structure of the base-ten number system and be able to represent and compare whole numbers and decimals;

• Grades 6–8 Expectations: In grades 6–8 all students should–

work flexibly with fractions, decimals, and percents to solve problems.

(Utah State University).

I really enjoyed viewing the National Library Of Virtual Manipulatives website! I think that these virtual manipulatives are a fantastic idea to help entice all different types of learners and it is also a great way to include assistive technology in a lesson! As I mentioned earlier, base blocks can enhance a student's learning in so many ways, as do all of the other virtual manipulatives on the website. My thoughts are, why PAY for all of those manipulatives to be in your classroom, when your students could take advantage of all the virtual manipulatives for FREE!?

Utah State University.(1999-2010). National Library Of Virtual Manipulatives. Retrieved from: http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html.