Benable — create shareable lists of things you recommend!
E.g., products you love, local businesses, travel recs - you can add anything to a Benable list!
Math Manipulatives That Made My 7-Year-Old Finally Get Fractions
36
items When my daughter started crying over her math homework because she couldn't picture what half of something meant, I knew worksheets weren't cutting it. If your kid shuts down the second fractions or multiplication come up, these are the hands-on tool...
Sections
12
Fraction Tiles That Click Into Place
Base Ten Blocks for Place Value
Counting Cubes That Snap Together
Pattern Blocks for Geometry Basics
Fraction Circles for Pie Visualization
Number Lines and Bead Strings
Fraction Tiles That Click Into Place
She kept staring at pie charts on paper like they were written in another language. The moment she could physically snap pieces together and see that two fourths made a half, something switched on.
Grab these before your kid's next fractions unit — my daughter lined them up on the floor and suddenly understood equivalent fractions without me saying a single word. Perfect for visual learners who need to hold the concept in their hands.
Learning Resources Magnetic Rainbow Fraction Tiles
Swap these in when you want color-coded pieces that won't bend or tear. My kid dropped them in juice twice and they wiped clean. For any parent tired of replacing paper-based math tools every three weeks.
hand2mind Plastic Rainbow Blank Fraction Tiles
Keep these organized with the built-in tray — before this, fraction pieces ended up under the couch constantly. Pulled them out one evening and she compared thirds to sixths on her own while I was making dinner.
Fraction Tiles with Work Tray, 5 sets
Base Ten Blocks for Place Value
Place value was a total mystery until she could stack hundreds, tens, and ones into towers. Now she builds numbers like she's playing with LEGOs.
Use these the next time your kid writes 201 instead of 21 — stacking the flats and rods made my daughter physically see why a zero matters. Durable enough to survive being thrown into a backpack daily.
Learning Resources Plastic Base Ten Starter Kit
Try the blue set if your child gets overwhelmed by too many colors — the single-color design kept her focused on the math instead of sorting by shade. She finally stopped mixing up tens and hundreds after one session.
hand2mind Blue Plastic Base Ten Blocks Complete Set
Switch to foam if your kid does math on a hard table — these don't slide around or clatter when they knock them over. My daughter works on our tile floor and these stay exactly where she puts them.
hand2mind Blue Plastic Base Ten Blocks Flats Set
Counting Cubes That Snap Together
Before these, addition and subtraction were just numbers floating on a page. Snapping cubes together turned ‘seven minus three’ into something she could break apart with her fingers.
Snag a set before your kid hits regrouping — she builds a train of ten, snaps off three, counts what's left, and actually remembers the answer next time. For any first or second grader who counts on fingers and keeps losing track.
Learning Resources Mathlink Cubes
Toss these in a zip bag for car rides — my daughter practiced skip counting by fives in the backseat and it stuck better than any flashcard drill. They click together tight enough that they don't fall apart mid-count.
Hand2Mind Snap Cubes
Bring this version home if you want built-in activity cards — saved me from Googling ‘what do I do with math cubes’ at 8pm on a Tuesday. The cards walk you through patterns, addition, and early multiplication step by step.
MathLink Cubes Kindergarten Math Activity Set - 115 Pieces
Pattern Blocks for Geometry Basics
Shapes were just vocabulary words she memorized and forgot. Fitting hexagons together from triangles made her actually understand what ‘sides’ and ‘angles’ mean.
Get the wooden ones if your kid is rough with toys — my daughter has dropped these a hundred times and not a single chip. She figured out that six triangles make a hexagon completely on her own one rainy Saturday.
Learning Resources Wooden Pattern Blocks
Try plastic if you've got a younger sibling who puts everything in their mouth — no splinters, no paint chipping. My older daughter builds symmetrical designs while accidentally learning geometry vocabulary.
hand2mind Foam Pattern Blocks for Kids
Pair this with the blocks so you're not inventing activities from scratch every night. The cards start simple and ramp up — she went from matching shapes to creating her own tessellations in about two weeks.
Learning Resources Magnetic Pattern Block Activity Set
Fraction Circles for Pie Visualization
Pie charts in her workbook meant nothing. Holding an actual circle and pulling out a quarter piece — that's when she stopped guessing and started knowing.
Use these alongside pizza night and watch it click — she pulled out three-eighths of the circle and then pointed at the actual pizza and said 'that's how much I ate.' Worth it for that moment alone.
Learning Resources Rainbow Fraction Deluxe Circles Set
Grab the plastic version for classroom-level durability — my daughter's teacher asked what we were using at home because her fraction test scores jumped. Thick enough that little fingers can pop pieces in and out easily.
hand2mind Plastic Rainbow Fraction Circles Classroom Kit
Stick these on the fridge for casual math throughout the day — she walks by, rearranges pieces, and quizzes herself without me asking. For any parent who wants math practice that doesn't feel like homework.
Didax Magnetic Fraction Number Line
Number Lines and Bead Strings
She kept skipping numbers when counting past twenty. Running her fingers along beads one at a time slowed her down enough to actually track where she was.
Slide beads across in groups of five and ten — she stopped counting every single one and started seeing chunks. For kids who understand ‘five plus five’ out loud but freeze when they see it written down.
Learning Resources 10-Row Rekenrek Counting Frame
Drape this across the table and let your kid physically walk their fingers to the answer — my daughter used it for subtraction and finally stopped guessing random numbers. Lightweight enough to toss in a homework bin.
hand2mind Mini 100-Bead Wooden Rekenrek
Toss this on the hallway floor and let them literally walk the number line — she jumped forward for addition and backward for subtraction, and her body remembered what her brain kept forgetting.
Learning Resources 0-30 Number Line Floor Mat
Dice and Mental Math Practice
Flashcards made her anxious. Rolling dice turned the same math facts into a game she actually wanted to play after dinner.
Try these when flashcard drills make your kid cry — she rolls both dice, adds the numbers, and doesn't even realize she's practicing because it feels like a board game. Two layers of dice inside each other keep things interesting.
Learning Resources Dice in Dice
Switch to ten-sided once basic addition gets too easy — my daughter started multiplying the two numbers on her own because she wanted a ‘harder challenge.’ For second graders ready to level up without a workbook.
Learning Resources LER7698 10-Sided Dice In Dice
Bring these out for multiplication practice with bigger numbers — she rolls two twelve-sided dice and races to multiply before her older cousin. Competitive kids will beg to play this after homework is done.
Koplow Games 12-Sided Double Dice, Box of 40
Measuring Tools for Real-World Math
She didn't care about inches on paper. Measuring her own desk, her stuffed animals, the dog — that made units actually mean something.
Use this when your kid asks ‘why do I need to know inches’ — she measured every doorframe in the house and then compared centimeters to inches side by side. Answers the ‘when will I use this’ question instantly.
Learning Resources Customary/Metric Tape Measures
Drop this on the table and let them weigh everything from erasers to grapes — my daughter figured out ‘heavier’ and ‘lighter’ in five minutes and then spent an hour testing every object in the kitchen.
Learning Resources Primary Bucket Balance
Pair these with bath time or cooking — she poured water between cups and learned that two halves fill one whole before I could even explain it. For kids who learn better when they're slightly wet and laughing.
Learning Resources Measuring Cups Set Of 4
Clock and Time-Telling Tools
Telling time on an analog clock was pure confusion until she could move the hands herself and watch the minutes count up.
Grab this if your kid stares at a clock and guesses random times — she moved the hour hand, then the minute hand, and connecting those two movements finally made ‘quarter past’ make sense.
Learning Resources, Time Activity Set, About Time, Ages 5+
Keep one of these on her desk permanently — the color-coded hour and minute hands stopped her from mixing them up. She went from guessing to reading clocks accurately in about a week and a half.
Learning Resources Big Time Student Clock
Snag the multi-pack if you've got more than one kid or want extras for playdates — my daughter teaches her younger brother using these, which means she's reinforcing her own learning without knowing it.
Geared Mini-Clocks Classroom Kit, Set of 24
Money Math and Coin Recognition
Quarters, dimes, nickels — they all looked the same to her. Holding real-sized play coins and sorting them by value turned a memorization problem into a sorting game.
Set up a pretend store on the kitchen counter — she made price tags for her stuffed animals and counted change back to me. For kids who won't sit still for worksheets but will play store for two hours straight.
Learning Resources, Pretend & Play Calculator Cash Register, Ages 3+
Toss these in a jar and have your kid sort by value — she started recognizing coin sizes by touch alone after a week. Way more effective than pointing at pictures in a workbook and hoping it sticks.
Play Money Sets for Learning and Fun
Try this on family game night when you want math practice disguised as fun — she counts coins to earn dollars and gets genuinely competitive about it. Sneakiest math lesson I've ever pulled off.
Learning Resources Money Bags Coin Value Game
Multiplication and Skip Counting Aids
Memorizing times tables by chanting them was a disaster. She needed to see groups of objects before the patterns made any sense.
Use this when your kid can add but multiplication feels like a foreign concept — she placed counters in rows and columns and suddenly ‘three groups of four’ wasn't abstract anymore. The grid layout does the heavy lifting.
Learning Resources, LRN6648, Giant Magnetic Array Set
Pair red and yellow counters with any multiplication problem — she groups them, counts them, flips them for subtraction. For kids who need to physically build the problem before they can solve it on paper.
hand2mind foam two-color counters for kids ages 5-8
Stick these on the wall next to her desk — she traces the patterns with her finger while counting by twos, fives, and tens. Caught her mumbling skip counts in the shower, which means they're actually working.
Skip Counting Educational Math Learning Chart Kids Poster
Math Journals and Hands-On Workbooks
Regular workbooks bored her to tears. These have cut-and-paste activities, drawing prompts, and actual space for her to show her thinking instead of just circling answers.
Ditch the worksheet packet your school sent home and try this instead — problems build on each other and she actually finishes pages without complaining. For kids who need variety on every page or they check out completely.
Evan-Moor Math Fundamentals, Grade 2 Teacher Resource
Grab this if your kid needs repetition but hates being told to practice — the pages start ridiculously easy and build so gradually that she's multiplying bigger numbers before she realizes it got harder.
Kumon My Book of Multiplication: Revised Ed, (Paperback)
Keep this in the car for waiting rooms and long drives — each page is short enough that she finishes before she gets bored. Covers math, reading, and science so it doesn't feel like pure drill.
Customer reviews for Brain Quest Workbook: Grade 2