Math - base 10 cards

Here are some pictures of the math lesson with Sparkle. I'm really impressed with how the textbook introduces the base 10 picture cards, teaches trading with them, and will eventually move to using the abacus to represent and add numbers in the thousands.

(Base 10 picture cards are little cards, each with a picture representing 1 [a single cube], 10 [a rod], 100 [a flat], or 1000 [a large cube]. The cubes in the rod, flat, and large cube are even color coded in five's just like the abacus. The picture cards are like the actual base 10 cubes that other math programs use, but cards are much cheaper and easier to handle, especially when dealing with multiple thousands.)

Here is Sparkle using the cards to add three four-digit numbers together. First she found the base 10 picture cards to represent each four digit number. Then she combined all the base 10 picture cards together, arranging them in columns to mimic how she will use the abacus in the future.



Then came the trading. She gave me ten 1's and asked for one 10 in exchange. She gave me ten 10's and asked for one 100 in exchange. She gave me ten 100's and asked for one 1000 in exchange.


Finally she got to the answer. I can see how using the base 10 picture cards really helps illustrate the concepts of place value, addition, and carrying. However, the cards really take up a lot of time and space, and so I'm glad that the cards are used for only a few lessons.


She also had to write the numbers on paper. The textbook has the student use special graph paper to make it easy to line up the columns (ones, tens, hundreds, thousands) when writing, which I think is another amazing idea.