As students work diligently on their learning in content areas, they can work with manipulatives to learn vital skills in developing collaborative language, listening and learning from peers, and experimenting with concepts in tactile ways.
 
If students are given manipulatives to work with, they can enhance their learning and delve deeper into understanding key concepts as they concurrently develop vital life skills which will serve them well in middle school and beyond. Working with versatile products, students can learn the skills of creative problem solving in groups, create problems to share with peers (student becomes teacher), and develop multiple solutions to challenges.
 
intooba construction kits for math/engineering/STEAM facilitate hands-on collaborative work with manipulatives, and they:
 

• promote active listening,
• require accurate descriptions of thoughts and directions,
• encourage experimentation,
• enable the visualization of concepts, and
• foster creativity.
  

Learning fractions is easier with a physical manipulative. The INTOOBA Construction Kit has rods of varying measurement making it an ideal tool for learning fractions visually.

Logical thinking, the process of moving sequentially from one thought to another in order to reach a conclusion or solve a problem, is an essential skill. Teaching this complicated process to young students can be challenging. However, using the INTOOBA Construction Kit, students can construct physical models and see an explanation of how logical thinking works.
 
Exercise: teacher assigns values to the rods and connectors. Students are asked to logically establish what is missing in the figure and what they need to complete the construction. They are asked to give values to what they see, what is missing, and what a completed piece would be worth. Students are asked to complete the model, and share their thinking process with the group.
 
Students use logic to establish what is missing, and then use their hands to solve the challenge.
 

Two very important concepts in mathematics are measurement and value.
 
The INTOOBA Construction Kit is a very valuable classroom tool as it caters both to measurement, and the concept of value.
 
Measurement
 
Measurement is important as it gives students an idea of how long, big, or wide something is. When we learn to measure something small such as a desk or a room, we establish a way to relate one object to another. For example, a desk is smaller than a room. If we are able to measure the length and width of a room, we can eventually move on to measuring the length of a road or the size of a lake.
 
Using the INTOOBA Construction Kit, students can measure a classroom, a hallway, or the whole school! Students can learn about scale, and make a scale drawing of the classroom.
 
Here is a second grade use for the INTOOBA Construction Kit where students have to figure out how many rods of varying lengths fit into the desired inch totals.



















Value
 
When we want to teach cost, money, or resource constraints, we can establish the concept of value by assigning a dollar value to the different color rods and connectors. Let students know they are building a bridge, and let them construct and tally the total cost of the bridge.

Students construct a pyramid using the INTOOBA Construction Kit. Then they make a small square out of rods and connectors. Placing the square in the pyramid, students estimate how many squares the pyramid can hold. Making the problem more complex, smaller items can be placed in the square. Then, estimate how many smaller items there are in the pyramid!