3 Hacks to Expand the Life of Your Multisensory Fraction Materials

You love multisensory fraction materials. What to do with these materials once fractions have been learned? Creative hacks to expand their life for years.

There’s been an ongoing debate over “unitaskers” in the home. For those who don’t know, a “unitasker” is an item that only does one thing. These are often found in the kitchen. Egg slicers, cherry pitters, and melon ballers are common examples of “unitaskers.” Occasionally a few creative people will find additional uses for them. For the most part, they get used for only one task. As minimalism and simplifying become more popular, these “unitaskers” are getting more attention than ever.

Helping Montessori Materials Find New Life

These items exist within the homeschool world too. Parents often shy away from purchasing materials because they struggle to see the investment in something they might only use for a short period of time. We want to get the best ‘bang for our buck’ in all our investments for home education. By purchasing high-quality Montessori materials, we can reuse them from child to child. This helps extend the life of less often used resources.

The Montessori Method is careful and intentional about the materials used. You’ll find the same materials used over a span of several years. Children will have a chance to become familiar and comfortable with items. They will be able to grow in how they’re used and teach younger siblings ways to use them. Within the Montessori setting, you’ll also find materials reused over and over. Intentionality is placed in being good stewards of resources and reusing anything possible in different ways.

A little bit of creativity can also go a long way. Finding ways to extend the life of our materials ensures we’re getting the most we can for our money. We’re always amazed at the amazing creations children make with our decimal materials, wooden shapes, and other manipulatives! Kids are so creative. Sometimes letting them loose with a shelf full of materials and a little bit of free time yields amazing results.  

3 Ways to Use Fraction Circles Within Your Homeschool

Fraction circles are one material parent often shy away from. They are key multisensory fraction materials. Yet, home educators often worry they are not used long enough to justify the expense. We are often asked if the lessons in our Fraction Book can be completed without the fraction circles.

While it can be done, it’s not going to be especially easy. All our lessons are written with the fraction circles in mind. They are beautiful and children love using them. Made from durable plastic, they’re designed to last. We’ve also made sure to make them visually appealing with bright colors children love. The Fraction Kit will do an excellent job teaching your children fractions. It can be used interspersed with your lessons (we do “fraction Friday” at home). Or you can work through it completely after Math Kit I or book 4 in Math Kit II.

The fractions circles can be reused in other ways too! They don’t have to sit on the shelf until it’s fraction time.  

Work on fine motor skills by using them for tracing. Obviously, you can get a perfect circle with the “whole” circle piece. Children also love tracing the smaller pieces. They will become pictures of pizza, pie, geometric patterns and designs, and more. Kids also love the challenge of getting all the pieces placed together to make an even circle. You’ll be amazed at what your child comes up with when they are shown how to trace fraction circles.

Provide your builder-in-training with new building materials. The pieces come apart to become awesome building blocks. Watch as your child delights in creating towers and building walls. They can be especially fun when combined with other building blocks to add color, texture, and even decoration! These multisensory fraction materials suddenly become so much more with your creative builder.

Try some mosaic work. Mosaics are an excellent way to work on visual-spatial skills, patterns, and creativity. The size of the fraction circle pieces makes them wonderful for beginner mosaics. The inner edges are already made to nestle together and the colors create beautiful works of art. While the rounded outer edge gives kids an interesting challenge to figure out how to build their layout. Try using them alongside the wooden shapes for even more options.

These are a few ideas to help get you thinking outside the box. We hope you’ll enjoy finding other uses for the fraction circles, and all your other Montessori materials.