Illuminations

Illuminations

This compilation of manipulatives is useful for teachers in grades Pre-K-12.  When you open the site, there is a box on the right-hand where you can choose grade level and mathematical concept.  Once you search inside those parameters, games and activities will be listed.  Click on your desired one and a new page will open.  For example, the activity "Grouping and Grazing" for numbers and operations in grades Pre-K through 2 is a way for students to group things into sets, while simultaneously seeing the numerical value displayed with tally marks.  Once the students has separated the cows into groups, they can check their work and submit an answer of the total number of cows.  It's a great way for students to count and understand grouping items for skip counting.  The extended support given by using tally marks too is just one more way to represent numbers to students.  In the classroom, I would use these resources during whole group time to practice skills and/or model the use of manipulatives while students work with their own simultaneously at their desks.

Standards:
My focus in on elementary school, but these interactive resources are meant to address standards from Pre-K all the way through 12th grade.  In elementary school, these interactive resources address the following mathematical domains: counting and cardinality, operations and algebraic thinking, number and operations in base ten, numbers and operations - fractions, measurement and data and geometry.