Homemade Algebra Tiles help all students learn through hands-on activities
How many of us have thrown up our hands in despair at reading an accommodation on a student's IEP that indicates the need for "hands-on activities and manipulatives" in our Middle School Math or Algebra class? Fear not! Donna Roberts provides a way that Algebra tiles can be easily (and cheaply) constructed and distributed to an entire class on her website http://regentsprep.org/Regents/math/teachres/ttiles.htm. These Algebra tiles allow students to manipulate a range of problems, and Ms. Roberts offers links to activities that use the Algebra tiles to address concepts including signed numbers, the distributive property, adding and subtracting polynomials, and quadratic equations.
As an added bonus, Ms. Roberts notes,
Many of the commercial versions of algebra tiles are made from plastic and possess a "projectile" quality. I have found that the homemade tiles are seldom "airborne" since they are aerodynamically deficient.
Happy Tiling!