(Wife): I'm a former elementary ESL teacher in a school that had us in the classroom, even for math. I bought this set because I am now homeschooling our kid. This five frame / ten frame set is fantastic! Let me try to explain why. I think we all realize that math instruction has changed since we were kids. The five frames / ten frames are visualization tools that can be used for computation, algebraic reasoning, patterns, multiplication -- that kind of thing. In most of my examples, I used little trinkets I bought here and there: beads, poms, eraser tips, but the kit comes with counters that are blue on one side and green on the other. The idea with the ten frames (and trinkets) is to make math kid-friendly. But how do you use the five-frames and ten frames? Okay, starting in kindergarten, you can use a five-frame to show combinations of five. What do I mean? 5+ 0 = 5 4+1 = 5 3+2 = 5 2+3 = 5 1+4 = 5 0+5=5 The way I show this to my kid is by going left-to-right, top-to-bottom as a general rule. When I am using the counters and want to, say, show 1+1+3 = 5, what I can do is alternate colors - for example, one blue, followed by one green, followed by three blue. If I want to, I can then flip it around and write 3+1+1 = 5. You can use five frames and ten frames to break down numbers of two or more - for examples, 4= 1+3 and 3 = 2+1, until you end up with 1+1+1+1+1 = 5, in the example of a combination of 5 on a five-frame. So, kids end up learning different math properties this way. The idea is to start teaching kids visualization, automaticity, algebraic reasoning.... in other words, number sense. But how do you set it up? Well, they are somewhat open-ended; but I generally go from top to bottom, left-to-right, just like how we read. In one photo example, a five-frame is read from bottom to top. You can do it that way, too, depending on how you have it set up. The choice is ultimately yours, although I would recommend certain conventions, probably moreso for classroom settings when you have students with visual-spatial-type learning disabilities. If you are combining three or more groups using the provided counters, you can alternate colors; although you may wish to add an additional small trinket group in there, to be sure all groups remain clearly distinct. Because this set provides both ten frames and five frames, you can form arrays by attaching them using them vertically. (You can just put them next to each other beneath to keep going if you want to build bigger arrays.) What are arrays? Groups of groups - in other words, multiples. It's a way of teaching multiplication. Hopefully one of my pictures also shows that you can put the frames together for patterns. You can likewise use these to teach subtraction. Division would probably be a bit trickier but might still be doable, if you set it up right - and also depending on the size of your initial group. Happy math learning! = )
