Beads are an underrated math manipulative. They are inexpensive, colorful, and versatile!
Beads as Counting a Counting Tool
Sometimes you just want to switch up what your kids are doing and something as simple as switching the manipulative can help bring new life to your math center time. I enjoy using beads because they are inexpensive, they're colorful and they bring something new to the table. The one drawback is they do roll easily but if you have little containers or felt squares or something along those lines to use a kind of as a mat then that cuts down on the rolling. if you lose one it's not that big a deal because they come in packs with a lot of things in them.
Counting Collections With Beads
Beads are great for counting collections because they help illustrate that you can have what looks like a small amount of something but there are a lot of them and help students understand the value of different quantities isn't just about the size it's about how many there are. When you're starting to want your students to group and count bigger numbers sometimes it's hard to find enough manipulatives to give them to organize and count so beads are great for that purpose.
Beads for Fine Motor Skills
I've noticed that students are coming in with less and less hand strength which can cause problems down the line with their trying to write using a pencil, so any chance I get to include some fine motor skills practice into our curriculum is a chance I'm going to take. Beads and pipe cleaners are so easy to include into lots of different areas of math when they just need to record something or make something new.
Patterns with Beads
You can get styrofoam cubes from the dollar store and cut pipe cleaners in half and kind of stick them in to hold the place. Then, students can use beads to make patterns on those. You could have them pick a card and make an ABC pattern or it can be as simple as making whichever pattern they would like. Or try and make a different pattern on each pipe cleaner to get a little variety and the active threading of the beads onto the pipe cleaner is the fine motor support.
Making patterns on pipe cleaners is also great for repeating patterns for more than two repetitions! Because the beads are so small, they can have “long” patterns and still stay in their space during center time!
Counting with Beads
Beyond counting collections, you can use beads for counting specific numbers and include number writing you could use a game like Spin and Thread. In Spin and Thread, your students spin a number, put that many beads on their pipe cleaner, and then write down the number of beads they spun so they're practicing one-to-one correspondence counting number writing, and getting a little fine motor practice as well from the spinner and the beads.
How to Make A Number Rack
If you’d like to learn more about Rekenkreks you can go to this All About Rekenreks blog post!
In a nutshell, number racks are a tool to help students gain flexibility with numbers to 20 in a different way than a 10 frame. 10 frames are amazing tools I use all the time in my classroom but to help students generalize the idea of how much is five how much is 10 how much is 20 and different number combinations it's good to see the same number in a variety of ways to help them internalize what those numbers mean.
It may be difficult to get a class set of Rekenreks but they are quick and pretty easy to make!
All you need is a piece of cardstock, two pipe cleaners, and 20 beads, 10 of each color.
Cut the paper into a 3x5 or 4x6 sheets
Punch two holes or cut two slits about an inch to half an inch away from each other on both sides of the paper near the middle.
String 5 of one color and 5 of the other on each pipe cleaner
Put the pipe cleaner through the slits or holes and tie them around the back!
Once you have your number racks, There are two games I like to use number racks for and again the kids love something new and different but they're really practicing the same number range.
Pick, Build, and Cover
In Pick, Build, and Cover, Your students pick a number rack card, make the same number on their number rack, and then cover that number on their play mat. They continue until they have covered all the numbers and this game is easy to differentiate with the different number ranges you use. this game requires some prep but each set has a distinct little icon on the card that lets the kids know which that they belong in because things like that are so easy to get mixed up so one set has a little star once it has a little smiley face so that when it's time to clean up it's easy for your students to sort them and you are not spending your time figuring out which set is missing the seven card or the 10 card.
Spin and Slide
Spin and Slide is very much more a print-and-play type of game so your students either have a Rekenrek spinner, or a number spinner and they need to spin a number slide the beads over to try and make the same number on their number rack, and then draw beads on the recording sheet and write the number. In this game you're trying to move students away from counting by ones and try to get them to see the numbers as one whole so for example if they spend a seven they could push the beads one by one over until they get to seven or they can start to think about how they Use the fewest number of slides to make the number or represent the number.
On number racks, There are five of each color so if they're making a seven they could start to think about how they know the first set is five and how many more they need to get to Seven so if they're counting on 567 so they would start to think about how seven is the same as five and two and start at the number 7 bead and push them over as one instead of counting by ones.
Are you going to use beads in your math class? Get the both Rekenkek Games here!
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