Balances and Scales
Web Link: Math Balance (didax.com)
Flexibility: This virtual manipulative uses a peg scale to assist students in learning equality and inequality.
User Interfaces: Mouse and touchpad friendly. Touch-friendly, but will not resize for small screens.
Browsers: Works with all major browsers.
Web Link: Pan Balance – Shapes (nctm.org)
Flexibility: This virtual manipulative uses a balance with shapes to help students create equal expressions. Students can then guess what the weight of each shape is. There are 6 built-in sets and a random set generator.
User Interfaces: Mouse and touchpad friendly. Touch-friendly, but will not resize for small screens.
Browsers: Works with all major browsers.
Web Link: Pan Balance | Online Scale for Kids with Gram Weights (roomrecess.com)
Flexibility: This virtual manipulative uses a balance with mass-weighted objects to balance a scale. A center light will turn yellow when the scale is balanced. Objects can be selected for students to find the weight of using the scale and weighted masses.
User Interfaces: Mouse and touchpad friendly. Does not work with touch.
Browsers: Works with all major browsers.
Web Link: Pan Balance – Numbers (nctm.org)
Flexibility: This virtual manipulative uses a balance with numbers and expressions to create balanced equations.
User Interfaces: Mouse and touchpad friendly. Touch-friendly.
Browsers: Works with all major browsers.
Web Link: Pan Balance – Expressions (nctm.org)
Flexibility: This virtual manipulative uses a balance to check if linear expressions are equal. It provides a cartesian plane to show the progress of each expression as it is inputted.
User Interfaces: Mouse and touchpad friendly. Touch-friendly.
Browsers: Works with all major browsers.
Web Link: Algebra Balance Equations (hoodamath.com)
Flexibility: This virtual manipulative uses a balance with blocks to solve algebraic equations. The program can either generate questions, or students can input questions of the type Ax+B=Cx+d.
User Interfaces: Mouse and touchpad friendly. Touch-friendly.
Browsers: Works with all major browsers.
Potential Resources
These are resources that might be useful to teachers, but were not reviewed for this inventory.
Balancing Scales to Solve Equations (pbslm-contrib.s3.amazonaws.com)