This year I was lucky enough to present at a few mathematics conferences. At two of them, MAWA (Mathematical Association of Western Australia) and MAV (Mathematical Association of Victoria) I presented on the topic of ‘Using Manipulatives in the High School Classroom’. I had a great response to this topic with all the presentations well attended and really good discussions.
I realised that this was a topic that teachers were interested in and I began to think of ways to continue and grow the discussion. In a moment of madness, I started the FaceBook page Maths Manipulatives and was amazed at the response. I had 50 members in 10 minutes and a request to review a product. By the end of 48 hours, I had 1400 group members and the number has been slowly growing since then.
In this post, I will be reviewing the Numerule. I first saw this at the MAV conference and thought that it looked like a clever idea.
What is a Numerule?
The Numerule is a 30cm ruler that doubles as a simple counting tool for use in Lower Primary classrooms. Corresponding to each number on the ruler is a ‘button’ that can be pressed. Once pressed the button stays down, pushing up from underneath returns it to its original state. The buttons are grouped in tens by colour (blue, white and red).
The information that comes with the Numerule describes how it can be used for the four operations as well as for recording data. There are videos on the website showing children performing these tasks. The information also includes links to many Australian Curriculum descriptors. The website also has a teacher’s notes to download.
Trying it for the first time
As I received the Numerule, after school had finished I brought it to try out with my 6-year-old granddaughter. I gave it to her to look at without telling her what it was. She immediately started to push the buttons and saw that they could be pushed back into position. She used the ruler to measure a few things and told me that it could be used to draw straight lines. I asked her about the buttons she told me that they were in groups of ten and then counted in tens to 30.
I then told her that we could use it to do some maths questions. I asked her to show me how she could do 6 plus 5. She thought for a bit and then pushed down the 6 and counted on five, pushing the buttons as she went. The answer she told me was 11. I was impressed at how intuitive she found using it. We tried a couple more questions and she enjoyed doing them.
She then said look – and pushed down every other button and showed me that this was counting in two’s. Again this was without prompting.
I then guided her a little and we looked at subtraction problems. She then took the Numerule to bed!
My impression of the Numerule
Having now seen the Numerule in action I can see that it is a good design and looks to be strong enough to last in the classroom. My granddaughter took to it and quickly saw how to use it. I can see that in the classroom this could be a useful tool. As every student should have a ruler having one that doubles as a calculation aid makes sense.
If I have any criticism it would be that for the age group it is aimed at I would have grouped the colours in fives, not tens. This is how I make bead strings with students. I like the tactile nature of pressing the buttons and the way it can be used for data collection and representation.
Also, it is a little pricey at $14 (15% less if you buy over 25) but I was told that it is virtually unbreakable so should last. My younger grandchildren had a go with it and it did stand up to some quite rough treatment.