For more than twenty years, Chris Confer and Marco Ramirez have worked with administrators and teachers at dozens of schools around the country to cultivate an environment that elevates math instruction schoolwide. Now you can watch as they teach and comment on lessons using these essential math tools—tools that will help you deepen and improve your own math instruction, no matter what grade level you teach.

Manipulatives make mathematics visible; they provide models that help students think, remember, and communicate their ideas. Manipulatives enrich mathematics discussions and make learning accessible and understandable for students at all levels. In this video, Chris and a third-grade class learn about comparative sizes by exploring the dimensions of a variety of insects, animals, and birds using tape measures, linking cubes, number charts, and themselves.