Selecting Developmentally Appropriate Materials: Linking Cubes
Describe the Material
The educational material that I chose is Linking Cubes. Their main use is for math instruction, and are meant for age’s preschool through sixth grade. They can be used to teach a multitude of lessons such as, addition, subtraction, multiplication, graphing, patterns, etc. I think they are great because you can use them in so many different educational ways. I personally, was planning on using them in an elementary school setting, for addition, subtraction and patterns. For one set of 150 linking cubes, consisting of ten different colors, you can purchase them for about $20. They are often compared to Cuisenaire rods, and there is debate on which is better. I feel it really depends on what you are teaching. Linking cubes may be more useful for place values, and c-rods for group number work. I like the fact that they are a hands on tools, that …show more content…
For this study, a total of 98 children, both boys and girls ages 4 to 10 participated. All these children were right-handed. The task involved the children having to visually track a moving object, which was controlled by turning the wheels of a control device that was connected to a laptop, with their left hand. Manual dexterity is known to gradually progress with developmental age. This study, evaluated the performance of unimanual and bimanual actions in the children. The results concluded that younger children performed less successfully than the older children in the both tasks, with a plateau around the age of 8 years. Overall, the data highlighted a progressive change and integration of control systems due to developmental age with behavioral performance being guided by the existing constraints. Although this study does not have a direct correlation to the linking blocks, it does touch on the use of manual coordination, and its
Describe the Material
The educational material that I chose is Linking Cubes. Their main use is for math instruction, and are meant for age’s preschool through sixth grade. They can be used to teach a multitude of lessons such as, addition, subtraction, multiplication, graphing, patterns, etc. I think they are great because you can use them in so many different educational ways. I personally, was planning on using them in an elementary school setting, for addition, subtraction and patterns. For one set of 150 linking cubes, consisting of ten different colors, you can purchase them for about $20. They are often compared to Cuisenaire rods, and there is debate on which is better. I feel it really depends on what you are teaching. Linking cubes may be more useful for place values, and c-rods for group number work. I like the fact that they are a hands on tools, that …show more content…
For this study, a total of 98 children, both boys and girls ages 4 to 10 participated. All these children were right-handed. The task involved the children having to visually track a moving object, which was controlled by turning the wheels of a control device that was connected to a laptop, with their left hand. Manual dexterity is known to gradually progress with developmental age. This study, evaluated the performance of unimanual and bimanual actions in the children. The results concluded that younger children performed less successfully than the older children in the both tasks, with a plateau around the age of 8 years. Overall, the data highlighted a progressive change and integration of control systems due to developmental age with behavioral performance being guided by the existing constraints. Although this study does not have a direct correlation to the linking blocks, it does touch on the use of manual coordination, and its