I truly believe math manipulatives should be used every single day, for every concept.

But I know organizing math manipulatives is no easy task for a busy teacher.

And if you are working on a lesson that requires a certain amount of math manipulatives for each student, it can take lots of precious time counting out those materials.

Over the years, I’ve used two methods for organizing math manipulatives that have been a HUGE help in saving time.

Organizing Math Manipulatives (Only Once!)

These two ideas make it so easy for teachers to set up math manipulatives before the lesson.

Even better?

They help students with organizing math manipulatives, so you won’t need to count out a single material again!

Organizing Color Tiles

I love using color tiles for so many math concepts.

We use them so often, I like to have them ready to go at a moment’s notice.

And photo cases are an incredible way to store these color tiles…

How do photo cases help?

These little containers make it SO easy for students to keep track of the color tiles.

We use these 4″ x 6″ photo cases and students can layer in the color tiles with ease, which means they can keep track of their tiles without needing to count them:

My upper-elementary students know to create two layers of tiles for 48 tiles in all (a great number for building factor pairs and determining prime and composite numbers).

And here’s my favorite thing about these cases.

I only had to set them up ONCE (without even counting myself!) and my students have been able to keep track of our color tiles for many years now.

I can just pass out the cases and everything else is managed!

Organizing Counters, Dice, Coins, and Unit Cubes

Ok, this one may sound a bit strange…but did you know that makeup jars provide the PERFECT storage for organizing smaller math manipulatives?

Their size is just the best!

They are compact and can be stored in a larger bin when not in use.

They are ideal for storing all those small math manipulatives, including:

• counters
• dice
• coins
• units cubes

And the best part?

Just like the photo cases, these jars will be all ready for your students ahead of time…no need to frantically count out all those little supplies just before your math lesson.

I use two different sizes of jars for our math manipulatives: 1 ounce jars and 2 ounce jars

The 2 ounce jars hold a surprising amount of small math manipulatives!

And they are great for storing exact counts of materials, such as ten counters for younger math learners.

If your students are storing these manipulatives in their desks, you can add their names to the bottom of the jars.

I love to use these removable labels…they are the perfect size:

I use these labels with my math students and they are very easy to remove as I switch groups throughout the school year.

More Math Organization

Looking for more ideas for organizing math manipulatives?

I have a big photo post sharing all the ways I organize our math classroom here:

As well as another math organization post here:

Thanks for reading! I hope these ideas for organizing math manipulatives will save you so much time!