Virtual Manipulatives #4

This week when I went to the NLVM, I jumped around a lot. In previous weeks, I had a tendency to get fixated on a certain manipulative and work only with that manipulative. This week, I worked in grades 3-5 under the measurement and Data Analysis categories. I liked the idea of the Spinner for probability. The only problem was that I could not figure out how to record my results. After a period of trial and error, I figured it out. I thought that the students were suppose to manually record their results but realized that the computer does it for them. I think that this is a great activity for probability. I also worked with the Attribute Trains. This manipulative was interesting because my brain automatically started working overtime. The patterns here are more complex than the Color Patterns. These patterns include colors, shapes, and numbers. I was having a lot of trouble figuring out the patterns because I was thinking of all factors (color, shape, and number). Then I realized that each pattern was discovered looking at only one of those factors at a time, while the others just served as distractions. Once I realized this, the patterns were fairly easy, almost too easy. It was a little disappointing.