Varying learning strategies helps each student learn through his preferred style and reinforces lessons through secondary styles. For example, connecting cubes, or unifix cubes, appeal largely to tactile learners. You can stack these individual connecting cubes vertically to aid in a variety of math problems. Provide students with a written problem, for example 7+5. Students group 7 loose cubes and 5 loose cubes to represent the equation. Next students begin stacking the cubes in groups of 10. The student will have 1 stack of 10 cubes and 2 remaining loose cubes to solve the equation.
BrainPOP Jr., Cool Math 4 Kids and other similar sites provide various ways for children to solve math problems.
Worksheets offer students a way to practice math concepts. Coupling a conceptual math statement with a visual representation of the problem helps makes a math equation meaningful. Consider the problem 9+4. Next to the math equation should be a group of 9 stars and a group of 4 stars. Tell students to circle 10 stars to make another group. Write a 1 in the 10's column to represent the group of 10. The remaining stars (3) reveal the solution for the 1's column.
Both visual and auditory learners will benefit from the mnemonic device Bigger Bottom Better Borrow, or the 4Bs. It is a helpful reminder that if the bottom number is greater than the top number in a column, the student must borrow from the top column to the left.
Writing the acronym on the whiteboard helps visual learners while reciting the definition together as a class benefits auditory learners. The Rockingham County Public School System in Virginia suggests starting math lessons sitting in a circle on a rug to help engage students, which might be an excellent location for reciting the definition.
Walden University's ConnectEd suggests using math manipulatives as a way to make conceptual math real for students. Connecting cubes are an ideal way to accomplish that goal, too.
Students receive a written math problem that they translate into a connecting cube problem. If the problem is 15-9=?, for example, stack the cubes with 10 in the top left column, 5 in the top right column and 9 in the bottom right column. The students discover it is impossible to break 9 cubes away from the stack on top, so must borrow the stack of 10 from the top left column to complete the equation successfully.