Overview
Popsicle Stick Math helps children easily understand the basic operations of arithmetic. One requirement for understanding arithmetic procedures is to thoroughly understand place value. Children who do not have a clear understanding of place value concepts will continually borrow from the wrong place, become confused with zeros in multiplication, find long division difficult and so on. Talking about place value rarely helps children understand it; even pictures provide little help. Children need to concretely see place value. When a child works with a ten-bundle of sticks, he can see that he is holding one ten that is, at the the same time, ten ones. When he takes a rubber band off from a hundred-bundle to make it ten ten-bundles, he can see the relationship between tens and hundreds. Carrying and borrowing by adding and removing rubber bands to change the grouping of a number help him to understand what is involved in these procedures. If children do not understand place value, they usually end up frustrated and are apt to make many mistakes.