I use stacking math cubes. They stick together and you make "towers" out of them. They come in various colors, so it can be easier to understand how many groups of how many.freemotion said:Also, an early teacher had boxes of colored sticks, kinda like big match sticks, that we would lay out on our desks to learn basic math concepts. You can do basic multiplication with these, setting out, say, 3 groups of four sticks each and counting them up.