Virtual Manipulatives! Ipad App Review

Ms. Neumeyer is our online student teacher from Mr. Shareski's class in Saskatchewan, Canada. She loves teaching and even sent this special Valentine to the class!

Today she kicks off a new series called Ms. Neumeyer's Ipad App Review! In this series, she will introduce a new app to the class, explain a special feature or two, and explain how the app can be used by students. 

Virtual Manipulatives! is a free app that allows students to move around blocks, called manipulatives, to make fractions and decimals more understandable. 

A student can drag the manipulatives onto a workspace and match them up to compare and contrast. The student can also draw on the workspace to indicate instructions. What I enjoy most about this is that it is a free way to have students working with manipulatives, just as the name of the program says.

This is the opening instructions page- it does a good job of explaining how you can use the app’s functions.

Virtual Manipulatives uses traditional rectangular or pie-shaped objects to represent fractions and decimals. These objects can be dragged around a screen into groups for a range of activities, such as comparing fractions, adding, and subtracting fractions. There are a lot of manipulative options for the student to use. A very useful feature is the ability to press and hold on the fraction to see its decimal form and percentage. You can also save your workspace as an image and email it.

  

  
 What do you think of the Virtual Manipulatives app?

What are some fractions that are equivalent to one half? 

Equivalent to one third?

(Equivalent means equal to.)

Teach us about a feature you discovered!