“Do not tell them how to do it. Show them how to do it and do not say a word. If you tell them, they will watch your lips move. If you show them, they will want to do it themselves.” ~Maria Montessori
In the math area of the Montessori classroom, we have a special shelf designated for the learning of the decimal system. The shelf is home to the Golden Bead Material. We start by exploring the single bead that represents a unit or the ones place. We move on to the bar that is made up of 10 units in a row and represents the tens place. Ten of the bars connected together form a square which represents one hundred and the hundreds place. Ten of the hundred squares piled on top of each other comprise the one thousand cube or the thousands place. Each of the different place values are color coded. The ones is green, the tens is blue, the hundreds is red, and the thousands is green again, because the thousands are actually units of thousands followed by tens of thousands, etc.
The children are introduced to the decimal system with 3 basic exercises. First they build quantities with the bead material. We start building quantities with simple numbers. For example, “bring me 3 units.” Soon we combine numbers from different columns by saying, “bring me 5 tens and 7 units.” We then move on to large quantities of numbers by saying, “bring me 6 thousands, 3 hundreds, 2 tens, and 7 units.”
The second exercise is to find cards to represent the numbers given to them by the teacher. The child then learns to combine the numerals on the cards with the corresponding quantity of bead material.
The thousand chain is another material which the children can use to see what the thousand cube looks like when it is laid in a single row. The children count by tens to make it to 1000. With the chain being 27 feet long, the children are impressed with the great size of 1000.
The bank game is another favorite work of the children. This includes the exchanging of the Golden Bead material. The children use the Bank whenever they want to change units to tens, tens to hundreds, hundreds to thousands, or vice versa. Adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing four place numbers can all be done with the Golden Beads. The children also enjoy doing the decimal layout to show all the decimal places with their quantity.
Important Dates:
May 10th: Mother’s Day Tea 8:30-9:15
May 16th: Primary Field Day
May 17th: Kindergarten Late Night (Kindergartners only)
May 22nd: Kindergarten Moving Up Ceremony (Kindergartners only)
May 24th: Last Day of School- Half-day dismissal at 11:15