Instructional materials and manipulatives are critical in the teaching of geometry and measurement, as the concepts tend to be very abstract. Many students have trouble connecting the new concepts to their everyday life and what they already know about their environment. Also, some students are tactile learners and even more are visual learners. Providing students with hands-on activities that allow them to feel and see mathematics, to explore and discover concepts and relationships, is an essential first step in the learning process.
When students encounter a new concept they need to start with concrete representations. This is especially true in the early grades. Once they feel comfortable with the concrete representations they can be moved to instruction involving visual representations. Eventually, when students are developmentally ready, they should feel comfortable using abstract representations. What follows is a list of instructional materials that are useful in teaching measurement and geometry. Examples of how some of these manipulatives can be used in the classroom appear in the "Instructional Activities and Lesson Plans" section.
Many of these products are available via Web sites, catalogs, and textbook publishers.
