ipad apps, specifically base 10 blocks

[eirual]

Have any of you used base 10 block apps?

I was considering purchasing some in real life, but then stumbled across a few apps. I'm wondering if one is better than the other (since they all cost money and don't have free trial versions) and if the apps do a well enough job that they could replace an expensive manipulative.

....also curious about ten frame apps or any other of your favourite!

Thanks!

[moominmamma]

Sorry, I can't help you with specific apps. But I just wanted to make a case for the real blocks. I think a huge part of their value comes from the tactile, kinesthetic, 3-dimensional nature of a real manipulative. I think an app could be a useful adjunct, but they shouldn't replace the real thing. 

The real thing is more likely to be used for play. My kids built all sorts of cool towers and arrays and pyramids with them. Even if you can do this with the virtual ones, it's unlikely that your kids will take nearly as much delight, nor that they will experience the full 3D effect of real contructions. Observations like that four 10-rods as vertical struts between two 100-flats form a structure that is two units taller than it is wide. Building a pyramidal tower can lead kids to understand something about geometric series. Feeling a litre or a millilitre cube in your hands as a child many times is so much more useful a reference imprint than memorizing as a tween that 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm is a litre and 1 x 1 x 1 cm is a millilitre, and that there are a thousand of the latter in the former. The play with real objects sets up all sorts of fundamental conceptual learning.

Real blocks will get used more, and differently. I don't think the virtual ones should replace the real ones. JMHO.

Miranda

[eirual]

I think so too. I thought they'd be hundreds of dollars, but surprisingly, they're not! A simple set is only $25. Yay!!