Tree Blocks Math Kit

I wanted to share about something new we have been using for supplementary math practice.  It is called the Tree Blocks Math Kit.

I comes with about 66 blocks, a ruler and a stand, and some dice.  It also has ninety-six activity cards in three different levels.  The activities are fun and span the scope of most areas of math.  Their are also many activities that are for several children to do together.  The level one cards are for preschool and kindergarten age learners, level two cards are for 1st to 2nd grade, and level 3 are for 3rd grade and up.  You could modify the activities to fit different ages also.  My son is having a hard time with certain geometry concepts right now so I am looking to include those activities in his workboxes.  The other day he did his first one on area.  He had to take a sheet of graph paper and several different size blocks and trace their outlines on to the paper.

He then had to figure out the area of the shape by counting the whole squares, half squares, and quarter squares within the outline and add them together to get the total area.

He enjoyed it and I think it helped him understand area a little better.  His regular math curriculum is Saxon 7/6 but on Tuesday we take a break and do more hands on math activities so we look forward to trying a bunch of these.  Tomorrow we will be trying an activity called "What's the point?"  It is about coordinate planes.  He will be drawing a large coordinate plane on poster board and then I will be giving him a list of coordinates at which to place his blocks.  I will let you know how it goes. If you have a student that enjoy lots of hands on math you could check them out also.