Dienes blocks - recommendations and tips for Year 2 DD

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Hi there - any teachers or experienced mums can point me in the right direction? Are Dienes blocks useful to have to help with Maths at home? They've been suggested to me by the class teacher and another parent.

Should I get blocks? Are some better than others?

Tips for things to do with them to support Year 2 Maths? DD getting there but not flying...

Thanks!

What do they want you to do at home? Are they doing any extra in school?

Something like this might be used in school:

www.rapidonline.com/Invicta-163959-Interlocking-Base-10-Number-Structure-Set-52-3107?IncVat=1&pdg=pla-294357559827:kwd-294357559827:cmp-757438067:adg-44804851896:crv-207912323492:pid-52-3107:dev-c&gclid=CjwKCAjw2dD7BRASEiwAWCtCb5sm2wnQtNuEtCW1HdMSjcfjXrGr_vl3dEtT911R5DeoND7XJu-e6xoCYpMQAvD_BwE

But you can also draw them. I'm not sure what they want you to use them for.

Numicon is good:

www.amazon.co.uk/Numicon-Homework-Activities-Intervention-resources/dp/0198487061/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=numicon&sprefix=numicon&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1601500206&sr=8-5

Thanks, both. They both look good! To be fair to the school, I’m not sure they were recommending actually getting the blocks. Her teacher mentioned them, so I thought they might be handy!!! 😂 for doing addition etc. Not sure though. The numicon looks helpful too. Thank you!

Is she actually struggling with anything?

They can be useful for children who are not secure in their place value and benefit from visual/practical aids.

You can buy a base 10 set, and each shape/colour represents a different value: ones,tens,hundreds,thousands so you can build numbers with them. They also help to show the relationship between them like 10 ones in a 10, 10 tens in a hundred etc.

You could also use 10/1p coins or £10 notes and £1 coins to count in 10s and 1s.

Children need to be able to recognise or make any number to 100 using 10s and 1s. They need to be able to say 72 is 7 tens and 2 ones. Dienes/numicon are good because you can clearly see that 10 1 cubes are the same length as a 10 stick. You could make them out of card quite easily. It is also useful if they can draw a representation of them with lines and dots.
ICT games have some good place value games like shark numbers

We use dienes or counters and tens frames virtually every day in my year 2 class.

You could buy some or if the school have taught your child to do this, you could get them to represent the tens and ones by drawing sticks to represent 10 and dots to represent ones. However this only works if they understand what they're drawing!