Math Towers: An Interactive Way for Number Practice
This article may contain affiliate links.
As we have tried to navigate homeschool this first year, I have found that my son is not a worksheet kid. He will rush through it to get it done and it won’t stick. And he will complain about it the whole time. This has forced me to get creative with the ways I approach certain subjects. One way that has worked for us is Math Towers. If you don’t own a set of these counting blocks, I would highly recommend them. They are useful manipulative for many situations, even outside of homeschool.
For Math Towers, I have made a few sheets that let us practice the current things we are working on. I have a template in Canva that I can easily adjust so that is has the type of math problems I want to work on with him. I will link my current version below for you to download if you want to try it! But it is so simple, that you could even just write it down on a piece of paper if you don’t have a printer.
Each sheet has 9 squares that contain a math problem. The child must use the cubes to show the math problem. For example, if the problem says 2+4, the child can show that by connecting 2 blue cubes to 4 red cubes, making a tower that is 6 cubes tall. My printable only go up to 10 currently, but I will be adding more as I make them. I also have subtraction printables for 10 and below. And if you have a younger child, I also have one that is just counting practice. In this sheet, they are just counting out 8 cubes to match the number 8 on the sheet instead of adding or subtracting.
As you work up to larger numbers, it is a good idea to have the child do towers of 10 if the number is very much bigger than 10. We all have experienced the meltdowns that happen when a tower falls over. And if your child is colorblind like mine, you may need to be lenient with the color coding in the addition and subtraction problems. Or only use the blocks that aren’t an issue for your child. We learned that one the hard way too.
Download your free printable below!
