Teaching manipulatives can include a variety of objects students can use to build or move around in some way. At times students might replicate something as close as possible to the original, depending on the lesson objective, while other times they might use their creativity and imagination.
Examples: blocks, puzzles, counting chips, play money, rubber stamps, tiles, cubes, beads, cups, macaroni, rocks, candy pieces (i.e., M&Ms), craft sticks, foam shapes, small plastic/rubber animals or people, magnets, tubes, pegs, magnetic numbers and letters, etc.
Questions About Using Teaching Manipulatives as Tools for Bible Learning Activities
Other than time fillers, why should we use blocks, puzzles, or other teaching manipulatives with children?
As active learners, it’s important to give children hands-on opportunity to learn, engage, and interact. Using manipulatives as teaching tools gets beyond merely visualizing to constructing or manipulating objects to represent what they’re learning. When they’re able to construct something pertaining to a Bible story or truth, it helps their understanding by giving them a more concrete perspective of an abstract or unknown concept. It’s a way to physically represent what they’re learning. It’s up to the teacher to help children get beyond the play value of these tools to make the connection to what they’re learning.
Other questions about using manipulative teaching tools:
- Aren’t blocks, puzzles, and other manipulatives primarily for preschool aged children?
- How can we maximize time when using blocks, puzzles, or other manipulatives?
You’ll find responses to the above questions in the Bible Teacher’s Handbook of Frequently Asked Questions. This resources answers a total of 153 questions covering 49 different topics related to Bible teaching.
Teacher Training Resource: Blocks, Puzzles, Other Manipulatives as Bible Learning Activities
We don’t have $ budget to buy puzzles, blocks, and other. What can I do?
That’s a valid question, TJ. There are low cost and no cost ways to still use teaching manipulatives if you’re willing to invest a little time into collecting common materials that may be more readily available or can be purchased at a low cost. For example, you can make puzzle from magazine pictures or old Bible story teaching pictures. You can use rocks, boxes, cups, and cardboard tubes for building blocks. If counting, you can use small stones, pieces of candy, macaroni pieces, and the like. And, remember that fingers are manipulatives which can be maneuvered in different ways to visually communicate.