"For instance, concatenation of line segments or planar regions serves as a substitute for addition; the operation of forming a rectangle out of two line segmen

"For instance, concatenation of line segments or planar regions serves as a substitute for addition; the operation of forming a rectangle out of two line segments would serve as a substitute for multiplication; the concept of similarity can be used as a substitute for ratios or division; and so forth." When I was a wee lad, my parents somehow recognised that while I really took pleasure in understanding abstract math concepts, I struggled to grasp math concepts when only using written symbols (bless their hearts as my parents - my mom a security guard at a local power plant and my dad ran "warehouses" and did a sting in prison for "warehousing" the wrong "thing" - were the furthest thing from academics). They got me Cuisonaire Rod (1) instructions from a local lady who must've done it as a side gig. We'd sit at her kitchen table and play around with shapes and I would gain true intuition for all types of basic math concepts. I believe it laid a solid foundation for my future (current work as an engineer and researcher). I still struggle with abstract math explained using symbols. I very rarely make it through any math Wikipedia page explanations. It's like teaching an abstract concept with an abstract tool - too many layers of abstraction. I always envied the people who can. 1.) https://www.hand2mind.com/glossary-of-hands-on-manipulatives/cuisenaire-rods https://www.hand2mind.com/glossary-of-hands-on-manipulatives...