See, you get these rods and cubes, just like base blocks only they're on the screen and exist only in pixel form, so they don't fall off the table and get lost and they can't be used as hockey sticks and pucks, or as drumsticks or grenade launchers or whatever else creative minds have in store for them.
--Oh, and then when you model regrouping (which I prefer not to call "borrowing," as I've said before, because you don't ever give it back--I prefer to use the phrase "stealing") you actually grab one of the virtual tens rods and bring it over to the ones column and let go and watch as it separates itself into ten little ones cubes.
Then you hear the kids saying WHOA! and COOL! and NEATO TORPEDO! (well, not that one, maybe) and the like.
Then you get to separate hundreds into tens the same way and thousands into hundreds and the whole thing is utterly charming and truly awesome and the best thing next to...
[Down, boy.]
[The picture below isn't actually from the virtual manipulatives website--it's from a powerpoint presentation I made dramatizing the process. What you see here is the ones stealing a ten, in the dead of the night of course, dragging it back to Ones Street, and breaking it into ten little ones cubes so there'll be enough ones to carry out the subtraction.]
Anyhow, children sometimes ask how they can get to the site at home. Unfortunately, the address isn't straightforward. If you google "virtual manipulatives," it's the first site that comes up (as of today, anyway).
The whole site's URL is http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vLibrary.html. If you're interested, take a spin around the site with your child(ren). It may not be the equivalent of a medieval European cathedral, but as the Michelin guide would put it, it's quite definitely worth a visit.
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