I’ve found that using base-ten blocks and having to “trade-in” can be a huge hurdle for many first and second graders. I personally do not like introducing the ideas of regrouping using base-ten blocks (whether we’re working with double-digit addition with regrouping, or more foundational addition strategies like “making ten to add”). (Don’t worry! I’ll tell you WHAT I use shortly!) Regrouping (Trading In) If the manipulative itself causes confusion, it makes more sense to use a different manipulative to begin the foundational understanding of addition and subtraction beyond ten. While this is true, I believe that manipulatives are meant to support new understanding. One could argue that the one way students will learn that a ten rod represents “10” is through exposure to those manipulatives. This can pose a big problem when you’re trying to introduce a new concept like adding numbers beyond ten. That means that when they’re counting 2 ten sticks and 3 ones, they count “5” instead of “23”. They often see it as a single unit (which makes sense since the pieces are affixed to each other). One problem that I run into (especially in first grade) is that many students do not see the ten rod as a unit of ten. 3 Issues with Base-Ten Blocks Counting “Ten” as “One” So here we are: Why I don’t use base-ten blocks to teach addition and subtraction, and what I use instead. This answer surprised A LOT of teachers, and several asked for a deeper explanation… The truth is that while I use base ten blocks to help represent numbers with my students and practice concepts of hundreds, tens, and ones, I DO NOT use them in first and second grade to teach addition and subtraction. One of the biggest questions I received was why base-ten blocks didn’t show up on my first and second-grade lists, and only made an appearance when we got to third grade. I recently shared my top five math manipulatives for first, second, and third grade.
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