Virtual Manipulatives - a real winner

For our Fractions Unit, we have been using an app called Virtual Manipulatives! and it's free.  Here are a few screen shots to show what we've been doing in class recently. 

Students can compare fraction strips to find equivalent fractions.  When they want to start over, they press the blue "new" button at the top and the fraction pieces are re-shelved in the tray.

Students can manipulate fractions to add and subtract fractions.  Then can use the whiteboard feature of the app to do the  problem on the whiteboard as well.  The eraser to the far right of the tool bar acts as an "undo" button.

Manipulatives aren't new to the math classroom, but our classroom sets have only 10 tenths, 8 eighths etc, which made working with mixed numbers tricky.  It was hard for students to model 1 3/4 plus 4 1/4, for example.   With the app, students can keep adding as many ones, eighths, tenths as they need.  They aren't limited to the amounts in the tray.

Another big plus with the Virtual Manipulatives app is that the manipulatives are virtual. There are no tiny bits of paper or plastic to clean up after a lesson and there are no incomplete sets of manipulatives with only 8 ninths or 5 sixths in them.

The greatest thing about this app though is something I did not anticipate.  It was hearing, "Can I stay in at lunch and help the students who were at instrumental music?"  and "Wow, can we stay in and do more math during lunch?"

On the day we first used Virtual Manipulatives, several students missed the part of the lesson when we used the app because they had an instrumental music lesson.  When they returned, it was time for lunch.  One of the iTech helpers for the week asked if he could stay in at lunch and tutor the students on using the app.  All of the students who had been out of the classroom happily agreed to stay in.  They not only learned how to use the app (which was easy), but they also caught up on the lesson content.  The iTech helper did all the instruction without any input from me.  He answered questions about the app and about the lesson.  Soon everyone was working together to solve the sample problems.  Everyone was caught up and ready to go the next day.