Math manipulatives are an important tool for teaching math to preschoolers. They provide a hands-on way to explore math concepts. There are so many awesome math manipulatives out there. I like to use them when I’m teaching math lessons and or use them in centers. Math manipulatives can be something simple, like cotton balls, or you can get higher quality ones from stores like Lakeshore Learning or Learning Resources.
Today I’m sharing my top 5 math manipulatives for preschoolers. These are the ones I’ve used with my three boys and the ones I’ve found most effective.
Counting Bears
So much learning can happen with these little bears! You can use them to sort, count, make patterns, and even for dramatic play! They are also great for teaching beginning addition or subtraction.
There are so many counting bears to choose from. We like the classic counting bear set. They also have a family bear set, which includes three different sizes of bears.
Math Link Cubes
We are also big fans of math link cubes! (Also known as Unifix™ cubes.) These are awesome for counting, sorting by color, making patterns, and simple addition or subtraction. I also love that these work on fine motor skills when you snap them together.
Ten Frame Manipulatives
Learning about ten frames (and even five frames!) is important for preschoolers. Having math manipulatives for this is so helpful!
I love this magnetic ten frame because you can use it while teaching a class without the counters falling off.
Pattern Blocks
These colorful shapes are great for making patterns, learning about shapes, sorting by color or other attributes, and making designs with shapes. There are really quite a few ways to use these pattern blocks!
Mini Erasers
Do you ever see those mini erasers in the Target dollar section? These are fabulous for math! You can use them for counting, practicing one-to-one correspondence, sorting, making patterns, ten frames, and more!
You can also find mini erasers on Amazon, but I usually just pick them up from Target.
For two days only, you can enter to win all five of these math manipulatives!
You do need to be 18 years or older and live in the United States.
I love ALL of these counting manipulatives, but especially the erasers! My students love erasers and love counting with them!! 🙂
I would love to win these Math Manipulatives to use with my son.
So want!!
These are great.
Yes! These are amazing and we would LOVE to be able to utilize them!
I love all of these, but especially the magnetic ten frames! Those are amazing!
These would add to my tool box. Anything novel helps with motivation and excitement in learning.
So many wonderful tools highlighted! Hands on fun is where the most learning seems to happen. 🙂
I love those magnetic tens frames! I think I will be looking for some more mini erasers so I can make up individual bags for each kiddo. No sharing manipulatives right now makes it tough!
These are all great manipulatives, but I hadn’t thought about using mini erasers. I have not seen the ten frame manipulatives before. Those would be great for students to work with!
These would be amazing for our math learning!
All great items to practice counting.
As a pediatric OT in preschool I’d like to say all these manipulatives are great to develop fine motor and visual-motor skills too! The snap blocks are good for bilateral strengthening, dexterity, and coordination, bears and discs for grasp and in-hand manipulation skills, and the mosaics for visual perceptual skills!
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I love the manipulatives! We use them daily to compliment math activities. The student i work with finds math challenging so we use maniulatives to turn math class into an advanture
These manipulatives are fantastic! You can never have enough.
These are great resources for teaching Early Childhood!!
These are all really great ideas! I catch myself stopping at Target’s dollar section every time I go there looking for cute mini erasers, lol. My students love that they go with the current theme. Merry Christmas!!
I would love to add these to my classroom! THank you so much for sharing your talents with us!!
These are all great manipulatives I would love to have to use with my preschoolers.
We use math manipulatives every day!
My little loves his counting bears. I purchased them when we started your preschool curriculum. I don’t have the others but I know all 3 of my kids would benefit from these. I really like the pattern blocks. Thanks!
Love all of these! I have really good memories of using counting bears and unifix cubes when my mom was homeschooling me. Would love to be able to do the same with my two kids that are now getting to pre-K age! Counting bears have been in my amazon cart for a year waiting for the right moment when I can get them, haha 🙈
love them
All of the manipulatives are very entertaining and motivating for all students to use!
I would love those magnetic ten frames!
All of these manipulatives would be good in my Special Ed classroom
How am I just noticing that the holes in the unifix cubes are shapes?!?!
These would be great for my special needs students!
Would love to use all of these in the classroom.
So many ways to use all these manipulatives!!!
What great tools!! We love math!!!
These look like such great resources. I would love to add them to my collection!
I remember using math blocks to learn multiplication! It made math so much more fun. Would love to have these manipulative as my 4 year old is so into math right now. He wakes up asking, “Mom, is 10 plus 2 twelve?”
I use manipulatives for everything! Any I use anything I can find (those erasers are often hard to find at target) Even bottle caps and fish tank stones! I’d love to have some more “professional” supplies. Not sure what I’d pick. The magnetic ten frames are the only ones I haven’t seen before…
These are great classroom items.
These are so fun! I love ways to make counting and math hands on, and these are such great ideas, I love the mini-erasers!
I love them all. Easers or Bears or really any of the items would be a wonderful addition to my activity box.
These all look great! Would love these to use with my granddaughter. The beats would be fun for her. I’ve never thought about using mini erasers – great idea.
These are awesome, my students would love them!
My students love the counting bears and the shapes. We frequently use them for color matching activities. I would love to incorporate the link cubes more often in our classroom- they are great for working on those small hand muscles and strength!! With all of the restrictions on sharing materials right now, any and all of these materials would be amazing to have in our classroom!
thank you so much for your site, it has been day/week/life saving on more than one occasion!
Fun… don’t we all learn better and more when we’re having fun? These look like lots of fun and I can see how much creativity can come from them!
Between my son and my preschoolers ALL of these manipulative are amazing!! They can be used for so many different objectives!
All of the math manipulatives listed are great.
I could use all of these with virtual learning!
The mini erasers! Thank you for this great opportunity to win!!
I’ve used the bears for color sorting, so much fun to use hands on manipulatives. I love the pattern blocks for shapes too! These are such great ideas – thank you for the chance to win these!
These would be great for homeschooling my children.
I would have to choose these adorable
Mini erasers!
This one is the best giveaway yet for me! I’d love to have them!
These magnetic ten frames are awesome!!!
I would love any of these manipulatives, but I could use the counting bears since my supply has gotten low over the years!
So beneficial for little hands!
I would love to win ten frame manipulatives to help my students with number sense, counting, addition, and more!
I would love to win these math manipulatives for my son since we don’t have much resources to work with. Thank you
I’m a middle school/high school math teacher, but am now a stay to home mom and am always looking for fun ways to incorporate math into our activities. These manipulates would be great!
These would all make for fantastic counting practice activities with my preschoolers!
I could not live without pattern blocks in my prek classroom!
I have a kindergartner and then another child coming up after him. These would be perfect with our math program.
Love these!
So much easy and fun learning with these math manipulative !! Loved the all products ! Thank you for sharing with us!!
This year I am homeschooling my 3 kids. I am looking for ways to incorporate more hands on learning and these math manipulatives would be great.
I love these manipulatives. You can never have too many manipulatives.
Ooh la la, what a fantastic array of math manipulatives. These are so helpful for experiencing math in a meaningful way.
The kiddos in my classroom love manipulatives and use them not only in math. I really would love to use the ten frames with them.
I would love to win these.
I need those manipulatives in my classroom
I’ve had pattern blocks on my wishlist for a while now!!
These are awesome manipulatives….especially the pattern blocks!!!
love these ideas
I would be VERY happy with ANY of the manipulatives. I work for a Title 1 school, so my littles would be happy also with anything new and different to hold their attention. Thank you, also, for all you do! 🙂
These would be awesome to supplement my math materials. Love those little erasers for so many activities!
Math manipulatives are wonderful and the children really enjoy using them
I love all of these math manipulatives. They would be great to use with my son.
Such great hands-on inviting manipulatives! So many ways to engage my pre-k learners!
THese would be so helpful for me as a home visitor.
homeschool!! Manipulatives would be amazing for my math loving kindergartener!!
My boys would love these, especially the 4 year old who is getting into math more and more!
Amazing post. Math manipulatively are such a helpful resource for kids.
These manipulatives would be great for special needs students as well as young learners.
These are great!
How much fun these would Be!!
These are all so helpful and a handful of manipulatives is worth a thousand words.
Thanks for offering.
The Counting Bears are so cute and would be so helpful!
I love the idea of using the mini erasers! What great ways on using them for math!!
It is so much easier for kids to grasp a concept when they can physically see it. There manipulatives are wonderful for doing just that. Would love to have them.
These are all awesome manipulatives for my SPED classroom!
I would be so grateful to have any of these for my classroom. We are on a very limited budget this year, all these items would be awesome for getting the kids ready for kindergarten. I love the bears and the math link cubes !
thanks Ann F
Id love to
Win this for my homeschool room!
These are definitely must haves in the classroom! I love the 10 frames boards with the handle. Could definitely use those teaching virtually.
I hadn’t thought of the erasers! Good idea.