HOH: Montessori Math part I

This post is part of a series.

Hands-On Homeschooling: Flying Squads

HOH: ECE (Reggio Emilia, Montessori, and Waldorf Comparison)

HOH: The Montessori Five Great Lessons

How Does Montessori Teach Math? (part 1 of 2)
Oct 4, 2022

NAMC training binder

Mathematics 1: Whole Numbers
Lower Elementary 6-9

sample lesson, pp.187-191
Place Value Multiplication: Background Information

Exploring the Checkerboard

• Three-Period Lesson
• Understanding Place Value on the Checkerboard
• Reading Numbers on the Checkerboard
• Adding Numbers on the Checkerboard

Introduction to Place Value
and the Golden Bead Material

Golden Unit Beads

Golden 10 Bars

Golden 100 Squares

Golden 1000 Cubes

Small Number Cards 1-9000 and Small Number Cards Box

wooden tray and golden cup

pencils and paper

whiteboard

colored pencils - green, blue, red

dry erase markers - green, blue, red

Infinity Street (homemade)

White Opaque 10-Sided Die for the Dice Game

Operations: Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division

Stamp Game and mat

Operations: Addition and Subtraction

Small Bead Frame

Operations: Division

Cut-Out Labeled Fraction Circles and mat

Operations: Multiplication
and the Colored Bead Material

Golden Mat (homemade)

Checker Board Beads

Number Tiles

Checker Board

Place Value, Revisited
and the Binary Mat

Binary Mat (homemade)

green cup

NOTES - Colored Bead Material - Based on the questions asked, I should have brought the Short Bead Chains, Printed Arrows for Short Bead Chains, and Hello Wood's Montessori Teaching Clock. Those materials were hard for people to visualize. I included the Fraction Circles to show how consistent the color coding of the materials is (a fraction is a division of one, and 1 is red).

NOTES - Binary Mat - Difficulty-wise, it would have been better to bring the Binary Mat in the next session, but I wanted to make it clear that the Golden Mat was gold because this mat shows the place values in base 10. The Golden Bead Material is all gold because the 10 bar is gold and our number system is base 10. A mat for a different number base would be a different color. The Binary Mat, which I invented, is green because 2 is green!

As shown in the NAMC Place Value Multiplication sample lesson, the Montessori Multiplication materials combine the color coding of place value (units green, tens blue, hundreds red) with the color coding of digits (presented in the Colored Bead Material). This helps to scaffold for children what is happening in long multiplication (which is a LOT of information)!

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