Integrating Workbooks and Hands-On Materials

With math, I use workbooks and Math Montessori Album which I purchased from KHT Montessori. In this post, I will show you how we integrate workbooks and Montessori Math.

So we start with     a workbook. As you can see we are currently reviewing the place value. Using the book, we discuss this a little bit, then close the book and prepare our Montessori materials for a hands-on activity.

In Montessori, there are a number of ways on how to present place value. I have talked about this before using the Golden Beads. This time, we used the Stamp Game tiles.  Here's my presentation of hundreds, tens and ones. Each digit can range from 0 to 9.

Then I set up an activity for Mavi to see if he was able to grasp the concept.  I don't want to overwhelm him so we only worked up to tens. The number tiles you see here is from our Hundred Boards.

After the hands-on activities and when he's ready we work on the workbooks. Adding hands-on activities to textbooks/workbooks/activity sheets makes the learning less tedious and more exciting for little fellows. So either way, workbooks or hands-on activities you'll be fine.

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Golden Beads Addition (Static and Dynamic)

In this post I am going to present how to do static and dynamic addition using the Montessori Golden Beads.  I purchased our Golden Beads at Absorbent Minds UK and I am happy of the materials despite the price. These materials can be purchased in any Montessori Shop.

ADDITION STATIC

Mavi would work on this in the morning. I find it hard to make him do Montessori activities in the afternoon as he tends to be tired or prefer to have  free play.

Anyway, we would set up the materials together  and he could finish the task with little assistance from me.  I prepared the equations before heand in Post-Its rather than using the small number cards. During the entire session he would pick 4 to 5 Post-Its in our magic box and would solve the equations one by one.

Shown below is an equation he worked recently.

So given the equations Mavi will layout the beads. We read out the quantity of the beads from left to right.

Now to add, combine the two sets of beads.  Emphasize  that addition is putting together. Once the beads are combined, count the unit beads first, and work through the tens and hundreds (to thousands if available).  Here Mavi would take note of the quantity by getting a large number card to represent the quantity. He would do the same with the tens and hundreds. Now note that we are currently doing addition up to hundreds only. 

To represent the sum Mavi stacked the number cards together as shown below. We would the  read the number together. Now we do this most of the time because he keeps on forgetting how to read large numbers.  If number cards are not available you can always use printable number card or just let the child write the sum on the paper.

DYNAMIC ADDITION (REGROUPING OF ONES)

Dynamic addition is commonly known as the process of addition wherein we need to carry over an amount.  In Montessori they do this by regrouping. The process is similar to static but the regrouping takes place when we now combine the beads.

Based the on equation that my son was working on, 8 and 7 sums to 15, which 10 and 5. Now, what we did here is to replace the 10 units a ten gold bar and retain the 5 unit beads. Add the new ten bar to the left and you can now start counting the total sum by counting the regrouped beads ( start counting from the right).

 

DYNAMIC ADDITION (REGROUPING OF TENS)

Similar process is applied when you need to regroup the tens. Replace 10 ten gold bards to a hundred bar and move it up to the left.

Then count the total sum of the beads from right to left.

And that’s it! So simple! You might think it is complicated but once you started working on it, it’s fun and can be addicting… well, that’s according to Mavi :)

Happy Monday!

PH Math for May

I've been assessing my Mavi's progress in mathematics for the past days.  Math is the least of his interest as of the moment.  So during our Math hiatus, I was checking my list and so far he knows and understands everything on it.  In fact he is way beyond his years according to his teacher.

Now as summer vacation is approaching I'm thinking that we should be a little bit more serious with Math this time by being religious to our schedule :)

So for May here's what we're going to have for Math:

Skip counting.  We started with 2's and next will be of 5's and 10's.

Here we are using the beads in our Decanomial Bead Bars with Box and the number tiles from our Hundred Boards for the label.  He pointed out "Mom, it's just a pattern!".  Of course, he's referring to the 0,2,4,6,8 :) And that's what I wanted to instill in him... that in Math some concepts is all about patterns!

   

After the beads and label activity, I made him skip count all the way through 100 and counting it backwards as well.

 

Number Symbol and Quantity (Tens)

Here we're using the same materials.  My objective here is for Mavi to master the identification of number symbols and its equivalence in quantity. 

Activity 1:  Place the correct number of beads, given the number symbols.

Activity 2:  Identify the number symbols,  given the quantity.

 

Activity 3.  Writing the number symbols.  Mavi has no problem writing the numbers from 1 to 100.  But it's a different story when it comes to hundreds and thousands :)

Number Symbol and Quantity (Hundreds)

The same activities with the tens but here we are using our Bead Material and Wooden Small Place Value Cards 1-9999 .

Activity 1:

Activity 2:

Activity 3.  Mavi is still confused writing the hundreds and thousands.  When he wants to write 321, he writes it like 300 21, similar with 1100... he writes it 1000 100.  Now this is pretty normal but I just think that we needed to practice more on this during our spare time.

Hundred Board with Control Chart. I am still on the process of exploring hundred board games.  I have collected a few ideas from fellow homeschool Moms and I can't wait to try it with Mavi.

PS. This post includes affiliated links

Golden Beads Addition

On days that we're not doing any "themed" activities, we work on our bead materials and lately the golden beads has been a favorite in the house.  Technically, this activity is good for 2 or more participants but since we have no other kid at home that can participate I volunteered for that position :)

So this is a simple addition "game" as I always tell my son.  Using our small number cards, I would create a random 4 digit number for both of us and we're going to fetch the equivalent of that number using the golden beads. 

           

Then someone has to add or combine them all together to determine the total.  But since we don't have a third person to do that, my son and I did this together.  We combined our beads and counted them.  I made him identify the number of thousand cubes, hundreds, tens and ones. 

 

Using the small number and large number cards, I made him add the numbers to check whether our counting with the golden beads is correct.  Here I showed him that we can add quantities by combining or manually counting, but it always easier to do the addition using the technique below.

  Here's the layout of our work.And we did a few more.  I also made him use the activity sheet (Stamp Game sheet) from Montessori Printshop so he can practice writing 4 digit numbers.

            

          

Though it's a good activity for addition, it is quite overwhelming for one child to do.  After a few work on numbers he complained that its tiring.

Next, we'll attempt to have a Stamp Game.  We'll see how he'll react to it :)

The Golden Beads Layout

 

Just wanted to share our recent work with the golden beads material.  I've been contemplating on purchasing these for a long time and I was convinced by fellow Mommy Montessori bloggers that these materials are worth a try.  Actually, I was convinced because now I have two kids to home school. So definitely these are worth-it!

I am using KHT Montessori Math Album in our schooling.

In a nutshell, I introduced the beads (unit, tens, hundreds and thousands) with their corresponding number symbol.  My son loved this.  He was able to tell the difference between the quantities of each number symbol.  He's like "The thousand is soooo heavy!"

  

We also learned how to compose and read bigger numbers! I made a printable of this but my son showed no interest. However when he saw this large number cards, he can't stop using it!  He loves creating his own number.... but somehow still confused on how to read it :) 

 

Well there are a lot of ways to practice composing bigger numbers and one of which is simply writing it down on a paper and have your child recreate the it using the number cards. 

  

Because the beads arrived in the time that my son has a better understanding of quantities (we previously practice making ones and tens), he was able to create this massive layout on his own.  I swear, I just left him and he did all the work in one sitting!

Completing the units...

 

Working on the tens...

 

Then the hundreds...

 

And thousands. Unfortunately, I only have 9 wooden thousand beads so he finished it till 4000 :)

 

It was impressive indeed! How I wish I purchased this early on.  But anyway, there are still a lot of work to be done with the golden beads. We'll be exploring those in the days to come.

This is so exciting!

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The Short Bead Chain (Squaring Chains)

I've been searching high and low for affordable bead squares here but unfortunately, there's none.  So I decided to make my own square chains using our decanomial beads.  Supposedly, I'm going to form them using connectors like suitable tie wire but again, none is available. 

So what I did here was to use the ever reliable contact paper. It was tricky though.  What I did was lay the beads flat on the table, attach a strip of contact paper and then I carefully turn them on the other side to completely cover the other side of the beads with the rest of the contact paper.

And this is how they turned out!  So far so good :) 

Surprisingly, they were sturdy LOL.

 

Here, I am presenting to Mavi how to identify the square of a number (because they will form a square).  He's more interested in the skip counting rather than identifying the square of a number.

 

The next time we tried, we worked on squares of 1 to 5 and we use the bead chain paper we got from Montessori Print Shop (free) to record the square of the numbers.

This is a good introduction for skip counting and a wonderful visual exercise for squaring.  But for now, we'll just proceed with the skip counting disregarding the squares as Mavi isn't interested on it yet.

Happy counting!

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Perfect 10 Snake Game

We are doing a lot of snake game for the past few days.  My son is now loving it unlike the first time he encountered it wherein he kept on complaining how tiring it is to count.  This time, he loves transforming his "jungle colorful snake" to "tiger snake".  For those new to Montessori,

Materials we used here are:

• Decanomial beads
• Black and white beads
• A mat
• Melissa and Doug Magnetic Alphabet box

So here Mavi made his own.  I made sure that the beads will make a perfect 10 just to demonstrate that the two numbers when combined will make 10. 

So here, we are replacing the colored beads (beads that makes a 10) to the golden beads.  The picture on the right is for the control of error. I am showing Mavi that the bead combinations form ten.  In this case: 6 (violet) and 4(yellow), 1(red) and 9(dark blue), 2(green) and 8(brown), 5(light blue) and 5(light blue),  and 7(white) and 3(pink) all makes a 10 (golden bead).

         

As I mentioned earlier, we've been doing this multiple times this week.  Here, I focused on two combinations only:  8(brown) and 2(green),  and 7(white) and 3(pink).  Because the snake is composed of repetitive combination of those beads he immediately memorized that those combinations make a 10.  In the middle of the snake, he did not bother counting... he just replaced the designated combination with the golden beads.

       

Same goes when we tried 9 and 1, 4 and 6 and, 5 and 5.  At the end of each activity, I showed him the equations that we can form out of those combination.  But of course, we will explore more of this "addition snake game" as we progress.

      

We are now starting our random snake game, and that's where the black and white beads will be useful.  They are basically used as a placeholder for the remaining beads after you have counted 10 beads (see the picture below). So here, we replace the colored bead into a ten bar (remove the blue and yellow beads) and add the 3 black beads to represent the remaining yellow beads (unaccounted).

 

This is just an overview of how we play the game. There's more into it actually with the snake game and we'll explore it one step at time.  I am not really good with words, so if my post is not enough, and if you need demonstration or an album, there are lots of it in the web.

All in all it was very effective, effective in a way that you will get the child to come sit with you and play and at the same time learning without getting bored.

Now, who says math is boring??  Happy Friday to all!

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