I think many people get caught up on the fancy word "manipulatives." The thing is anything can be used as a manipulative, and with children its best to use something they like or very familiar with. For example, both my son and daughter love cars. They have tons, so they make for great manipulatives. We count them all day long. A calendar can be used as a manipulative. My son counts the days of the month all day long. Its his favorite thing to count right now. My daughter she just prefers counting her jumps. For subtraction and addition objects like cars, candy, marshmallows (anything yummy works but sometimes can be distracting
) and fruit, all work well in teaching math concepts.
Sometimes we think we need to buy fancy systems to get the competitive edge, but math is all around us. If we take a moment, we can figure out that eating grapes can be a fun way to learn subtractions or adding groups of cars by color can teach addition and reinforce colors and organizing. The more natural the activity the less stress for you and the more enjoyable for the child.
To add, even though I don't care for Touch Math's lack of integrity, they do have beautiful and attractive worksheets. Without buying the whole package, you can download individual worksheets to see which worksheets work for you.
http://www.touchmath.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=WYT.welcome&page=DownloadableProduct I will say that for a young child (3-5) the idea of using dots or objects inside the number to take an abstract concept into a more concrete one on paper is an excellent and successful tool for many. Right now, I am creative enough to make my own worksheets applying this concept in a way that appeals to my children's interests. You can do anything you put your mind to. You don't have to a specialized education to apply this concept.
There are plenty of free downloadable worksheets for teaching shapes, colors and how to tell time. There is no reason at all to pay for them.
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