Feb. 21, 2007 - Straws as Manipulatives
I have been working with my 3rd grader on the concept of borrowing. This for some reason, has been difficult for him to grasp. Luckily I remembered the straw sets I made several years ago when I taught my daughter borrowing. With one lesson today, it has made a great difference in his comprehension. I should also say that he has been using some other manipulatives, which I love, but he needed a different way to see what borrowing is.
Here is how I use the straws: I took a pack of straws, you need at least 100, preferably 300. Cut them in half. The only thing I could find were bendy straws, they work just as well. Bundle the halves with small rubber bands into sets of 10, leaving at least 20 out to represent the ones. You will use 10 bundles of 10 to make your hundred set. You will want a few of these. The amount of straws you started with will determine the amount of ten and hundred sets you end up with.
Use the straws to set up subtraction problems. You can first start with "regular" problems that don't require borrowing. Once your child is ready to move on, set up some borrowing problems. For instance, if your problem was 33-18, you would place 3 sets of 10s and 3 individual straws on the top. Then place one set of 10 and 8 individual straws below those. When you are looking at taking 8 from 3, you will see that there is not enough. You can then borrow a set of ten from the 10s place, leaving you with 2 sets of 10. Unbundle your borrowed set of 10, so you now have 13 individual ones. Finish the take away problem. After a few tries with only the straws, I placed some numbers on the board and had him set up the problem on the table with the straws. Eventually, he was able to do the problem without the straws.
I hope this was a clear explanation. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me.
Comments
May. 26, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Titus2woman
I came over after Joanise's recommendation, and now I've fallen in love with your blog, your site, and added a button to my own! LOL! *THANK YOU!* for all you share! (((((HUGS))))) sandi
