Last Updated on October 3, 2024 by Editorial Team
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Learning difficulties, other attention-deficit disorders, and disabilities of both physical and learning nature pose hindrances to gaining education in conventional ways. Despite the Law of FAPE in place, students don’t get proper public education support at times. Homeschooling comes as a workable solution for such cases. It does have its challenges too.
How to make education easier for homeschoolers is a common question that parents mull over a lot. One of the refreshing supports is available in the form of manipulatives. Let’s explore some good reasons to use manipulatives and the list that I found suitable for homeschoolers.
Manipulatives in homeschooling – Solutions for self-learning
According to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966, parents have the right to decide how to bring up their children, and that the state cannot interfere in their decision. Hence, homeschooling is recognized in countries that follow this covenant. The onus lies on parents to create a suitable environment conducive to learning at home. Manipulatives help in creating those conditions by offering support such as:
- Kids can accomplish their learning objectives despite the learning difficulties face. Manipulatives allow them to explore topics through active learning and by applying a multisensory approach.
- Manipulatives are made engaging and easy to handle. It promotes self-learning as after a quick demonstration, kids are inclined to use manipulatives on their own.
- Manipulatives help learn to build problem-solving skills. Activities based on manipulatives drive homeschoolers to solve a problem by making choices within a restricted environment. Hence, they develop logic and understanding.
Keeping various objectives as well as subjects in consideration, the search for appropriate manipulatives should be done. I have classified below the manipulatives suitable for learning various subjects. Let’s go through these:
Homeschooling manipulatives for various subjects
1. Math manipulatives for homeschoolers
Math may worry some homeschoolers or leave them anxious. The engagement factor of the following manipulatives can melt these issues away and make learning interesting:
Abacus
Parents need to involve little kids in learning by experimenting to extract the best benefits of homeschooling. The Abacus is an effective manipulative that captures children’s attention easily. It is helpful in teaching little kids counting, comparing values, learning addition and subtraction, etc. The ease of learning provided and relevance in various study levels help have a multi-utility teaching tool at home.
Linking Cubes with Activity Cards
Linking cubes with activity cards offers a wholesome homeschooling supply. The set may have activity cards as a supplement. This manipulative allows learning math as per Common Core Education Standards and forges basic computation skills. It is ideal for self-practice and to make way around learning difficulties. Parents and young students can collaborate to create projects, solve problems, and have fun-filled learning hours at home.
Pattern Blocks
Unleash the creativity in your kid and give it formative support using pattern blocks. The main objective is to acquaint students with the geometrical figures and develop a critical outlook on things little kids see around them.
Mostly designed for the elementary homeschooling curriculum, this manipulative offers an engaging premise to scaffold basic learning to be prepared for more complex geometry topics. By adopting a playful approach, pattern blocks can help introduce kids to concepts of sides, angles, and spatial reasoning.
Activity Set
Reading time is important for building cognition skills. When you are homeschooling a kid, the importance of teaching time increases. Fitting all activities in 24 hours of the day requires building efficiency in time management.
This time-telling activity set teaches all basic operations such as setting the clock, reading time, etc. It is a multisensory learning tool that teaches how to read and tell time with the help of dice, puzzle cards, daily activity cards, etc.
Home Math Manipulative Kit
Learning by doing is an important aspect of homeschooling. You may not have a teacher’s capability when it comes to explaining concepts using books. However, activities can help fill the gap. This activity set is ideal for homeschooling a kid in math because it can help cover a variety of topics.
It is a versatile manipulative useful for teaching shapes, fraction circles, place values, graphs, and a lot more. The easy storage and portability of this manipulative add to its relevance in homeschooling.
Geoboards
In homeschooling, multi-utility manipulatives help a lot. Parents need to manage kids’ tendency to get distracted, and throw tantrums. Also, there is a need to manage space for storing the manipulatives securely. Geoboard is one such manipulative that fulfills most of the requirements. It is an ideal geometry manipulative that tells concepts like measurements, shapes, and corresponding areas.
Also, it offers a comfortable tool to do crafting activities at home in a clutter-free manner. Better concentration, mental calmness, and the development of newer skills of logical reasoning are some advantages this manipulative can offer to homeschoolers.
2. Science manipulatives for those little scientists
Balance teaching set
Kids are required to learn a variety of subjects apart from maths and languages. Science attracts those students who love to see the reason behind phenomena happening around them. The balance set is designed to teach the concept of heavy and light objects, and the difference between solids and liquids, to name a few. You may also acquaint homeschoolers with estimation and boost their observation skills.
Construction Activity Set
Spatial reasoning is another cognition-boosting skill that applies the principles of balance, space, and orientation. The construction activity set enables you to bring out the engineer in your kid. This activity set allows kids to explore, try and experiment, and make structures.
It is an easier and more fun alternative to develop fluency in shape concepts among growing kids. Perfect for homeschooling as it allows easier and quicker storage, and engages kids in a constructive activity that ultimately enhances mental prowess too.
3. Reading manipulatives for building language skills at home
Sight words flashcards
We all use a language at home to communicate, but learning to read requires training. Language skills are needed because while growing up we need to read books and present ideas verbally and through writing. Training kids at home on language skills requires tactful handling, and this sight words manipulative offers precisely that. About 250 Dolch sight words are included in this flashcard collection. You can ask little learners to enact the word wherever possible or play a spelling-telling game with them to help them attain mastery.
Sentence -building Dominoes
Sentence construction requires syntactic as well as semantic knowledge. Expecting kids to have learned by heart all the rules of grammar to make sentences is not a good idea. In homeschooling, the easier and more engaging method is to be applied. With sentence construction dominoes, the learners can attain working knowledge of how various parts of speech are applied.
This application-based method of learning offers a more meaningful alternative to mug things up. Colorful dominoes encourage frequent repetitions that take learners to the path of perfection and groom them for daily-life conversations and writing skills.
4. Basic Life skills manipulatives
Pretend money manipulatives
Whatever the mode or premise of teaching is, the basic aim is to groom kids to take on life beyond the years of learning with confidence. That is why teaching life skills and social skills are also imperative for extracting the best benefits of homeschooling.
Money manipulatives offer a ‘pretend and play’ way of teaching how to shop and pay while growing up. You can develop social scripts to tell how to ask for change or educate about the denominations of coins and currency notes to offer operational skills to growing kids.
Basic Life Skills Busy Board
Often children with learning disabilities find it difficult to dress up on their own. The dress practice board serves a dual purpose. First, it helps keep restless kids engaged in a useful activity. Second, it develops the requisite motor skills needed for wearing clothes and shoes.
This manipulative homeschools little kids on learning the daily life skills of dressing up for school, parties, or shopping. A variety of actions like buttoning, snapping, zipping up, or tying laces of shoes can be mastered with regular practice on these boards.
Using homeschooling manipulatives made it easy
How to use homeschooling manipulatives to achieve the intended purpose? Often people feel perplexed about the right way of employing manipulatives for effective homeschooling. Well, the key lies in planning in advance and clear communication.
Assign particular hours in the daily schedule for teaching and doing homeschooling activities. It gives a mental heads-up to the kids and they make up their minds to indulge in learning through manipulatives. Never ever use them as toys and explain their role in learning in advance. It allows kids to stay on the path of learning; they don’t get carried away by the gamified looks.
Participate and devote fully to the study hour. Kids learn by imitating. Hence, if you are sincere and devoted to learning hours, kids understand the seriousness of studying during study time and learn with a focused approach.
You may also organize an informal assessment session at a pre-decided time to check the level of proficiency achieved. A playful way of testing takes away the exam’s stress.
Conclusion
Homeschooling comes with lots of benefits, such as individualized learning, a safe and familiar environment for learning, and the comforting presence of parents. Manipulatives are designed to further capitalize on these benefits. If one takes good care and adopts a collaborative approach while homeschooling kids with manipulatives, the outcomes are most likely to be awesome in quality and far-reaching in effect.
I am Pratiksha Bhatt, Bachelor of Life Science, and Masters in Management Studies. I have done certification courses in early education counseling. I am a writer, a mother of a child with spelling difficulties which drove me to alternative resources of education like manipulatives and participatory activities. My areas of expertise are learning difficulties, alternative learning methods, and activity-based learning.