Fun with SumBlox

Published by MrHonner on

We have been having fun with our SumBlox, which recently arrived.  The number blocks are cleverly designed so that the height of each is proportional to its value.

Here we have the ten block

sumblox 10

and here we have multiple mathematical ways to achieve the same height as the ten block:  five + five, three + seven, and nine + one.

sumblox sums

So far, playing with SumBlox seems like a fun way to build number sense and explore basic properties of addition like equivalence and commutativity.  But there does seem to be one problem:  I think they got the height of this block wrong!

sumblox infinity


2 Comments

John Golden · May 10, 2015 at 10:19 am

love these! Clever solution to 1. Looks like maybe 4 is the square number?

Dave Skaggs · May 10, 2015 at 9:25 pm

I watched your TEDx talk. Lots of fun hands on math activities. The pictures reminded me of building and designing SumBlox in my garage.

Also saw that you were teaching in Brooklyn. Were you at NCTM?

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