I'm gonna have to go ahead and say that my most favorite part of the Montessori Method is MATH. I know, I know, you may be saying, NOOOOOO!!! Curses to math! but let me tell you what, after 5 years in a Primary Montessori classroom watching kindergartners work through all 4 operations with confidence and ease, I gotta tell you there is no other way that leaves kids with a solid understanding of mathematical concepts!
Today while I was working with one of my kiddos on adding teens it hit me that I really should share the love because even non-Montessorians can make this happen!
Without further ado...adding teens.
I have two small banks set up on our math shelves. We have a larger bank set up in the classroom. There is a lot of research behind the importance of giving kiddos the opportunity to walk back and forth building their numbers but in a small space, pre made banks have proved to be a great option to cut down on traffic around the room.
Included in the bank are units, 10 bars, 100 squares, a ten frame and 2 unit holders.
I write problems on our problem blanks and the kiddos get a bank and go to work.
I love these problem blanks because I am able to individualize each child's problems. This means that I'm not expecting all kids to be able to do the same work which seems logical because rarely do all kids need the same work!
So, Olivia gathered the 10s and units needed to build the numbers in the first problem. Once that was done she then moved all items down to add them together.
Now it is incredibly easy for Olivia to see how many ten bars (10s) and how many units (ones) there are when you add twelve and eleven together. This is so important because all to often kids don't see that those are tens in the ten column, not ones! The Montessori method let's them see just that!
Stay tuned for how this translates to my Lower Elementary classroom and kiddos who are working with bigger numbers!
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