Time for the Math Balance!

It’s amazing how some new math toys will invigorate your kids to repeatedly ASK to do math!

(this post contains affiliate links)

Since I’m an affiliate for RightStart Mathematics*, I was able to request a complimentary box of manipulatives to try out and talk about with you all! This means I finally have a math balance and all the other cool RightStart* things that I’d been holding off on buying. 

As soon as I opened the box, my kids were AT IT!

The math balance is a hands-on tool for teaching “equals”. If you have 6 on one side, then you must have 6 on the other side to make it balance. This is obvious when you use just 2 weights, but more challenging for kids to work out when given 3 weights. It took my daughter (age 6) a long time to work it out, and eventually I gave hints about how we had been learning about “equals” and the equation needing to be the same on both sides before she finally reached the “aha!” moment.

Now, the challenge for me will be working out how to store all of our new math gear! Up until now I’d been able to keep everything in a 15qt Sterilite container, but now I’m going to have to be a bit more creative. Stay tuned on what I come up with!

I picked up this container from JoAnn on sale for about $11.50. We’ll be able to store some of the pieces in this.

Do you have questions about RightStart Math? Want to see a specific blog post? Let me know!

*I am a RightStart Mathematics Affiliate, and am committed to writing a monthly blog post about our journey with this curriculum. Any purchases you make using my affiliate links will earn me a small commission (this will not affect the cost to you!).