Numicon outside the box.

[cear]

School never used numicon with DD, was only for lower ability children. What rubbish. A friend introduced it to me then found out school had it but as DD up to expected level didn't need to use it.
So for home use it came. To be honest not worth getting the home user set but making up your own from the different parts and do not buy from supplier direct as expensive.
My dd has now had it at home since year 2, she is now year 8 level 7+ in maths and we still use it, yes a high achiever in maths still using Numicon. Its more about thinking outside the box and what you can do with it. So how to use it at home....

So what do you use it for then?

Using numicon at home can be expensive unless you shop around the at home set costs about £40 and is great for some users but actually not worth the money best to sort out own set.
Buy from Book depository and wordery, both are postage free and need to flip between two sites for best prices , may be cheaper other places need to search a bit, occasionally Amazon has offers.
recommend the homework activities intervention set £15.36 (todays price) ok don't get the book or board but there is plenty of free resources on the internet so don't really need the book. Can even make up your own with pictures then dc can colour them in.
The board can buy for £6.99 so we are now up to £22.35 and nearly got the same as the home use kit. We don't have the laminated picture sheets but isn't it more fun to see what they can make? We have enough to get a really good foundation start going complete with bag to keep in and dice etc to make up games with.

...so what do you actually do with it?

So dc are having great fun and using but now getting bored as so used to it. Number bonds working well. The advantage of getting from places of no delivery charges and in small amounts you can build up a bit each month so start expanding on to it ready for different ideas. The next parts I found really helpful were the Orange 1's and number boards.we are going to start going over the price of £40 but remember still using at year 8 so 6 years on and with a high achiever and have built up over time.
Next purchase another base board so +£6.99 = £29.34 and a black perminant marker. On arrival turn base board into number square 1-100
next need 5 packs of orange 1s at £5.43 a pack (remember can get a pack a month and build up ready for this if want. there (approx. £27.50) so approx. £58. you now have a game situation if you mark with the marker pen one side with stripes and either leave other side blank or put spots on you have counters for two players and the world is wide open. (yes there are other cheaper methods of getting a number board and counters but this is a resource that can be manipulated on or off the board. You could write the numbers on to the orange pieces and match up to the board etc.

hi Numberfaker and kate just adding things to do.

Your daughter is in year 8 and has been using Numicon at home since she was in year 2 and she's now getting bored of it and you want advice on other activities to do with it?

Is this for real?

You can also make up a multiplication square as well. Comparing the multiplication square and number square and missing numbers replicated numbers is fun. using the other pieces for certain number bonding by looking at the number boards and number bonding to get certain numbers of ones you have landed on by throwing the dice. i.e throw a 2 + 5 use the number board to count on the 2+5 place an orange counter to mark landed there then strengthen the number bond with the 2 and 5 to check on right number etc.

Numicon is making numbers a visual thing

Number bonds
One mor or less
Count in 2 5 10
Then 3. 6 etc
Odds and evens
Times tables and dividing
Doubling and halving
Place value
Plot bar charts
Co ordinates
Weights and measures

It makes a huge difference to them "seeing" numbers.

School uses it for all children not the less able.

As they get older can use for prime numbers. Use the 1-100 board to do Sieve of Eratosthenes (look up on internet how to do this if you are not sure) and get used to it then use a game called knights move to see who can land on the most prime numbers. Knights move is wheer you start at any designated place on the board then can only move your piece the way a knight does in chess, 2 along and 1 up or down, or 1 along 2 up or down. Great for reinforcing prime numbers again can use the other pieces to reinforce devisability of prime numbers etc. Can be used for squaring cubing etc.

No letseatgrandma just saying how it can be used for older kids and more able kids she is not bored of it there are lots of ways to use it and like Sallyhasleftthebuilding says seeing the numbers makes a huge difference.

Oh, sorry-you said

So dc are having great fun and using but now getting bored

I was confused by what you were asking.

Sorry but things Sally lists are usually mastered in KS1 with or without numicon. I'm really confused what your point is beyond numicon can be a useful resource?

Meh Numicon has its place but it's often put out there as the solution for everything when there are way better resources out there

I think it's a great base line - yes you can use counters but kids then count out 17 then count add 5 it's slow!!
With numicon they pick up 10 and 7 then pick up 5 etc so they learn the method rather than counting!

Useful in KS2 but beyond that - not so sure!

I agree very visual, for some base 10 can be helpful.

I prefer to use cuisenaire rods. Much cheaper as well.

Love numicon...taught my boys maths so quickly, best money I've ever spent!! Cannot rate it enough!!

I think it's great, but expensive.
You can substitute easily with lego blocks, or simple parer version is enough for occasional home use. counting number shapes

paper

No not on commission. Numicon is amazing!!

We use numicon (homework kit), abicus and a unit, ten, hundred set. Numicon is certainly useful for my SN ds but I don't get terribly excited about it. I can't really understand how it helps a high achieving year 8; surely you have moved beyond 'numbers' at that point? Can't quite see how it helps with trigonometry, anything other than basic algebra etc.