My Favorite Things: Episode 2: Number-Bots

In my second episode of My Favorite Educational Tools, I want to share a new find: Number-Bots. 

Do you have a Transformer fan in the family?  Both of my boys are obsessed with Transformers.  When my youngest child turned four, my mom bought him these Number-Bots from Lakeshore Learning for his birthday. 

My youngest child isn't very interested in numbers or letters yet, but these toys really sparked his interest.  The set comes with numerals 0-9 that transform into cute little robots.  They also come with some math symbols to make equations.  The math symbols do not transform.

Number Bots have helped him start to recognize his numerals.  (Today he was able to circle the numerals 1 and 2 on a worksheet.)  Number-Bots to the Rescue!

Look at this face!  He's so excited about these toys!

 

P.S. Lakeshore Learning also makes Alpha-bots!

 

Did you miss my first Favorite Things Episode?  You can read it here.

A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS: Episode 1: The AL Abacus

Basics and Beyond Tutoring Students observe 1000 beads on the AL Abacus
 

  I'm going to be writing a series about some of my favorite educational tools and toys in case you are looking for some Christmas gift ideas. (Or just need a tool to help with a specific subject area.) This is by far my favorite math tool of all time. (I know you may not have a favorite math tool of all time, but I get excited about things like this!) The AL Abacus was developed by the creator of RightStart Math Curriculum, and the program centers around the abacus. You do not need to use RightStart Math to benefit from the abacus.

 

The AL Abacus has 10 rows of 5 blue, then 5 yellow beads.

 

Here are some things I love about it:

 

1. Unlike a traditional abacus, the AL Abacus is divided into groups of 5 and 10



Seven is shown as 5 blue and 2 yellow, just like 1 full hand and 2 fingers.




 

 2. The AL abacus mimics your hands.  When you ask a child to hold up 7 fingers, he will probably hold up one whole hand, and 2 more fingers..
















3. The AL Abacus makes adding numbers 5-10 much easier than just memorization by grouping numbers into fives.

Here we can see that 7+6= 5+5+3=13

4. There are many other great ways to use the AL Abacus, but I will show you just one more for this post. On the other side, it uses one bead to represent 1000, 100, 10, and 1 so that you can add large numbers.  Here is the number 1,623 represented on the back side of the AL Abacus.  With this you can learn place value, and how to add and subtract large numbers.

What other ways do you use the AL Abacus?

You can buy an AL Abacus here