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.

Don't Be Scared of Teaching Homeschool Math With these 5 Tips

Math is the #1 subject home educators say they feel unqualified to teach. Teaching homeschool mathematics to kids is intimidating for many parents. We often feel like we don’t have a good grasp of it ourselves. Or that we need to outsource it to someone else. I get it. Math was my least favorite subject in school. Guess what? It’s now one of my favorite parts of homeschooling. Join me in saying, “Math is fun!”

The Top 5 Reasons to Not Be Scared of Teaching Math

#1- Homeschool Math is not like it was in school.

Know what I remember from math in school? Standing in front of a blackboard being asked to solve an equation in front of the entire class. After talking with thousands of homeschool parents, this is a top memory for many of them too. I think this is one of the main reasons we’re scared to teach mathematics. When kids are on the spot, feel embarrassed, or singled out, it can be detrimental. While I don’t have any hard and fast data on this, I believe it to be true.  

When I was a kid I could solve problems on my own. The minute the teacher put me up there in front of the class I froze. I bet lots of you did too. If we can identify this as a negative feeling and experience, it can help us move forward with teaching.

The second thing that stands out to me when I was in school: worksheets. So. Many. Worksheets. And so many total busywork worksheets. How many millions of pages are printed on busywork sheets in schools every year? By choosing to teach at home, we can teach competency and closure. No busywork or repetitive worksheets required.

Teaching homeschool math looks 100% different than the standard school model. (There will be consistency between ShillerLearning and the Montessori method, I’m mainly comparing to public schools here.) It can be relaxed, it can be engaging, and *gasp* it can be fun!

#2- You can custom-tailor for each kid.

There is no pressure to move a kid along to keep up with the class. No pressure to stick to what a specific grade level says your child needs to learn. You have the freedom to repeat lessons as many times as needed, or as your child desires. If they’re struggling with a concept, you can leave it to come back to later. If there is a lesson they love, you can repeat it to their heart’s content. Plus, you can incorporate lessons and activities based on each child’s unique interests. Have a budding entrepreneur? You can start teaching business math. Have a kid who is always on the move? Use the ShillerLearning ball and our kinesthetic activities to keep them engaged and give them the movement they need!

#3-  Math games for kids.

Teaching through games not only can build math skills. Games teach social skills, visual/spatial awareness, reading, and more. We are so fortunate to be home educators at this time. There’s a vast availability of games to help teach skills and that math is fun. They don’t even have to be “math games.” Classic children’s games help reinforce concepts without the kids even realizing they’re learning. Starting a family game night once a week is not only fun but educational!

#4- There is math everywhere

Growing up, I knew I needed to learn math to function in the world. I didn’t understand how the worksheets were going to correlate to my real life though. By teaching our children at home we can involve them in the day-to-day uses. They can count out money for us at the store. We can have them measure ingredients when we’re cooking supper. They can help us watch our speed on the road. Once we start looking, we can find ways to incorporate it into our children’s lives without them even noticing.

#5- We script everything for you

When using ShillerLearning’s materials, everything is scripted. You won’t have to study up to review concepts. There’s no need to learn “new math.” Heck, you don’t even have to know the answers! All you need to be able to do is read the scripts to your child. It is the easiest homeschool math curriculum on the market. If you come across something you’re not familiar with, you can learn alongside your student. Kids love it when their parents show a love of learning too! When you encounter a lesson that’s a new, or difficult for you, it gives you the chance to learn. Our materials are open and go, need no prep work, and no study on your part. We’ve done this to help take the fear out of teaching for you.

How My Son Taught Himself to Learn Place Value.

I'm no math teacher, we include mathmatetics as part of our everyday homeschool routine. Sometimes, even when we think we're prepared, our children throw us for a loop.

I had 218 written out on a piece of paper. “You may tell me this number.” I said to my seven-year-old.

- “Two thousand, one hundred and eighteen” he responded.

I was flabbergasted. We have spent SO much time working on place value. He knew it before our winter break and then- poof- it seemed to be gone.

It can be incredibly frustrating when we feel like our children have mastered something only to come back to it and find out they are in need of a refresher or they’ve forgotten it all together. It’s also totally normal. “Use it or lose it” exists for a while in these early years. They’ll get there. I took a calm breath, pulled out our number cards and built the number.

- “It’s not quite that number, let’s look at it together. How many units are there?”

- “Eight” he responded.

- “Yes, how many tens do you see?” - I asked

- “One.”

- “Yep, how many hundreds?”

- “Two,” he then got an incredibly confused look on his face. The ‘learning moment’ was happening and he was realizing that it was NOT 2,118.

- “Great, how many thousands do you see?”

- “None?” he responded slowly and cautiously.

- “I don’t see any either, what number do you see here?”

- “Two hundred eighteen!!!” He responded enthusiastically.

Yes!! Isn’t it a sweet moment when you’ve worked through it with your child and seen them generate their answer??

Place value will be something you’ll keep coming back to through the years. As you get into 3 & 4-digit numbers, decimals, and beyond; you’ll need to revisit this concept to make sure it’s cemented. It is a truly foundational math skill and something most children don’t pick up in one lesson.

What is place value?

Place value is how we determine the value of a number. Our number system is based on groups. A single number (0-9) is referred to as a “unit” in Montessori teaching. Tens come next as two-digit numbers, hundreds help us make three-digit numbers and so on.

Teaching Place Value?

The best way for a child to learn place value is a lot of practice. In our curriculum, you’ll use place value materials throughout your student’s math education in numerous ways. Incorporating place value identification as part of your daily routine can also be helpful. Ask your student about place value for numbers you see on street signs, price tags, in books, etc. to help reinforce the concept.

Decimal Materials?

Montessori decimal materials are a foundation for teaching place value.

Providing children with something tactile for a concept that can be quite abstract is essential. Children begin by “building” numbers with unit cubes, ten rods, hundred flats, and thousand cubes. They can use these materials to “trade up” to the proper materials. For example, provide your student with 12-unit cubes and encourage them to trade to a ten rod when they get to ten units.

This is an excellent way for them to start grasping the concept of place value. As your student progresses, they can “trade” in for hundreds and thousands as well. Many children enjoy playing this like a shopping game where they “buy” the next decimal material for the proper amount of trade.

Number Cards

Once a child is familiar with the unit cubes, they’ll begin using number cards. These helps provide a visual for creating numbers, the tactile experience of building numbers, and the auditory experience of hearing numbers. Children begin by matching the correct number card to the corresponding number of units. They then move into matching unit cubes to the proper number card. This helps create the foundation for place value by giving the child a visual and a number at the same time. The number cards will be incorporated with the decimal materials we discussed above as well. Eventually children will use number cards to build large numbers and will be able to tell the place value for each number, as well as build a number with verbal directions for which number card goes in each place value location.

Number Tiles.

Not be confused with number cards, number tiles are introduced after the student has a firmer grasp on place value. In our curriculum, number tiles are not introduced until Book 3.

These materials are used similarly to the number cards with some differences. Number tiles are multiple tiles of 1, 10, 100, and 1000. They are used as an alternative way to help children build numbers, solve math problems and move their understanding of place value to the next level.   For the number 218, in number cards the child would select 200, 10, and 8. With our number tiles, the child would obtain 2 “100” cards, 1 “10” card and 8 “1” cards. These are an excellent way to make the connection between decimal materials to building numbers, as well as to practice “exchanging” tiles from one place value for other place value tiles when completing math problems. Children take the solid foundation of number awareness they learned with the other two resources and use them throughout book 3.

Moving Beyond Book 3.

While these materials are not included in our Math Kit 2, children can certainly still benefit from using these materials throughout elementary school. (Plus, the decimal materials make great building blocks for free time!). If your older child seems to struggle to grasp place value, incorporating these materials can be extremely beneficial.

Feel free to reach out if you need additional guidance for teaching regrouping, place value or anything else with your child. Make sure to check out our upcoming webinar on Teaching Place Value with Montessori Materials for more tips and tricks to help incorporate multisensory place value learning into your homeschool day.