We love to use building blocks to explore math concepts. We've used LEGO DUPLO to explore fractions and explored numbers using Mega Bloks and even counted in tally marks with Magna-Tiles. Well, five year old J has been interested in doing math with negative numbers lately, prompting him to quiz me constantly with math problems resulting in negative numbers. I dish it back to him and, of course, he answers them all correctly (thank you, hypernumeracy!). So I thought it would be best to introduce the concepts of integers to J. So here's a simple math tray for exploring integers.
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For this elementary math tray, I used:
- LEGO DUPLO
- Dry eraser markers (window markers work great too!)
I labeled the DUPLO from -10 to +10 in such a way that J could form a number line with them. And he did many times.
Once he had them all linked together, he liked to go through and name all the numbers, ensuring that he said negative and positive for each number.
Such a quick and easy math activity, right? This post is part of the A-Z Stem Series hosted by Little Bins for Little Hands. You can check out all the posts in this series here.
