Manipulative Photo Post

Not, of course, photos that will manipulate you, but photos of us using manipulatives.  It took me a while to accummulate these, but they are all the genuine article--showing what the ducklings ask to play with and how they play with them.  These are a mix of homemade items, Christmas gifts, and ones inherited from my mom.  As far as I'm concerned, anything small enough to be handled and different enough to be  sorted or counted can be impressed into service as a toddler manipulative.Beads are always eagerly received, even by those too young to string them. Larger ones would probably be desirable at this age, but I wait to let them play with them until they're past teething, and then I keep a sharp eye on it and teach them not to put them in their mouth. Even though he can't put them on the string, D2 likes to pull them off the string. D1 can string them herself, now, and likes sorting them by color. The little cups (old jello molds or something--those are from my mom)  are handy for all kinds of sorting projects. Egg cartons are good, too, especially the eighteen-hole variety. My sister sent them these counting bears and frogs, and they are always a  favorite toy, although we seldom actually count them. Here they are actually being used in a mathematical way--a pattern of alternating bears and frogs. (One-to-one correspondence comes in naturally when you start talking about each bear having a frog friend.) At other times they may get cooked and eaten (actually that fate awaits pretty much anything the ducklings play with). These rocks I scored at  a  garage sale that was getting rid of everything for free.  They were meant to decorate potted plants, but they're great for handling, sorting, counting, and comparing sizes. And a natural material, finally! Or you can just sit around and pass them from hand to hand. Mmm . . . nothing like a nice, tactile experience. Note the jello molds making another appearance.The Melissa & Doug magnets were a Christmas present. D2 has a set of vehicles. Sometimes we talk about starting sounds,  but mostly they just arrange them different ways. Shortly after this picture, D1 arranged them all in two rows, larger ones and smaller ones.  Someday we might also sort them by where they live or how many legs they have or things like that, but so far we mostly just have fun putting them on and taking them off. The shapes are homemade by my sister. (Some of them are inherited and she jazzed up the supply.) I find D2 interacts with them better if I just take a few out in a few colors and we  point to the different shapes or colors, or match ones that are the same, or trace around them on paper and match to the paper shape. Sometimes we have his doggie sit on the blue triangle, or the red square.  D2 loves triangles. D1 likes to sort them, too, and they make also great sandwiches. These are made of felt; I've also seen people suggest making them from craft foam. These logs (I suspect homemade, but they date from when I was little) are in graduated sizes, to sort out longest to shortest. D1 still finds this quite a challenge, but she likes to try it every once in awhile. I find it a challenge to keep them from rolling under the couches. Other things we like: puzzles, of course, both the wooden knob variety and the foamy Lauri variety. Bingo-style card games with pictures of household objects or different colors or animals or whatever--we don't try to play Bingo with them, but we sort them by which card they go on and talk about starting sounds. All different kinds of buttons (those jello molds come in handy again). They love to dip and pour grains, but I don't often feel up to that much mess, although I usually let them help me grind the grain for bread.

Posted: 11:25 AM, May. 24, 2007

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