If you’ve purchased the online course or any of the books in the workbook series on Developing Number Sense using Ten Frames and a Rekenrek, you may find this information helpful as you look for related resources.

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TEN FRAMES

These are optional, but if you’d like a fun, more durable (than the paper version provided in the books and online course) set of ten frames, I recommend one of these products:

2 plastic ten frames with counting pieces

larger set of plastic ten frames
magnetic ten frames
This rolling stamp is a fantastic way to instantly draw ten frames for on-the-go Math practice!

Rekenreks / abacus

Technically, a Rekenrek has two rows, but I highly recommend using a ten row (100 bead) Rekenrek if you intend to use this beyond numbers to 20.

This Rekenrek from Hand2Mind is great. (This is the one I use most often). It was sold on Amazon but seems to have been pulled from there recently – but it’s available directly on their website and is currently on sale for about $13 (down from $21).

Amazon has a plastic version here. (This is perfect EXCEPT that the packaging makes it look like a toy for young kids and diminishes the value of the Rekenrek as a learning tool that can take students from basic counting up through multiplication and division. If you have older kids, you may want to hide the box or buy a different product so you don’t get off to a rough start with this. 😉 )

An abacus like this one from Learning Resources also serves the same purpose as a Rekenrek and works great for all the activities in the books and online course: 

This is the same abacus used in the RightStart Math curriculum. It breaks up every group of 10 into groups of 5, which makes it much easier for kids to develop number sense as they learn to subitize, compose, decompose, add, subtract, multiply, and divide numbers.

If you’re near an IKEA, you can get a high-quality, colorful abacus there – but I dare you to go into IKEA and *just* buy one thing ;). Also, if you get a colorful wooden toy abacus, I highly recommend using a permanent marker and drawing a line around the first 5 beads in each row to help with instant number creation and recognition.

Battat B. Toys also has a super cute version with fruits (sold at Target and on Amazon) and each group of 5 is a slightly different color – it doesn’t work as well for subitizing groups of 10’s (being able to instantly see the difference between 5 rows and 6 rows, for instance) but it would go a long way towards building number sense and helping young kids get excited about playing Math. 🙂 (I think I’m going to get this one for my daughter for her birthday … since Math manipulatives make the best birthday gifts!)


Free online version

This online Rekenrek works great and has a few advantages over the physical versions (although the fact that it’s on a screen and not actually tactile does decrease the hand-brain connection): https://www.mathlearningcenter.org/apps/number-rack


DIY version

If you’d like to try a DIY version, you can make one pretty easily with materials from a dollar store. Here’s a picture of one we made with a cereal box, pipe cleaners, and beads. I also saw one made with an empty photo frame, skewers, and plastic straws cut into small pieces (to use as the beads).


Other supplies

You may want to use 

  • plastic page protectors for the reusable pages,
  • dry erase markers to write on the plastic page protectors, and
  • clipboards to use as insta-desks (when every other flat surface is messy 😉 ).

If you don’t already have these at home, you can find them here:

50 sheet protectors
dry erase markers
clipboards

If you have any questions or other suggestions to add to this list, let me know!