How to Teach the Decimal System Using a Montessori Group Counting Game
As children learn and become comfortable with new knowledge, practicing and implementing skills by participating in group games is a good way to help them enjoy displaying their newly acquired abilities. You can combine several different montessori learning tools to create a fun group game that also helps students learn more about the decimal system as they play.
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Things You'll Need
- 9 golden bead units
- 9 ten bars
- 9 hundred squares
- 9 thousand cubes
- Set of large number cards
- Felt lined tray
- Large green felt mat
Instructions
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Gather the students on one side of the mat so that everyone is looking at the lesson materials from the same perspective. The two trays should be empty, and the number cards should be lined up so that the thousands are in one pile, hundreds in the next, tens in the next and ones in the next. The golden beads should be grouped so that the thousand cubes, the hundred squares, the ten bars and the unit beads are with the other golden bead arrangements of their kind.
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Show the children a golden bead quantity in the tray. At first, use simple numbers, although later you can mix hierarchies if you wish to do so. For example, you might place four hundred squares in the tray. Ask the children how much is in the tray. They respond together or individually with the correct answer--in this case, four hundred.
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Have one of the students assign number cards to the quantity in the tray. For example, you might allow the first child to respond "four hundred" the opportunity to label the number. He should take the tray and place the four hundred number card beneath the golden beads. As the numbers become more difficult, he may need to stack the cards.
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Reverse the exercise so that you are placing number cards in the tray and the children are assigning golden bead quantities to the numbers. For example, you might stack the number cards 400, 30 and 1 in the tray to make 431. Then, a child would place four hundred squares, three ten bars and one unit bead in the tray also.
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Repeat the exercise as long as the children remain interested. You can play this game with increasingly harder numbers over a series of days. If you wish, you can also allow the children to use the materials as an individual lesson. Practice in one form or another until the children can read and assemble any numeral up to 9999 without hesitation.
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Tips & Warnings
Some instructors prefer to use the following verbage when teaching using this game: instead of saying "four hundred thirty one," for example, you say "four hundreds, three tens, one.'" This helps emphasize the numbers' proper place in the hierarchy.
Resources
- Photo Credit http://www.mconnections.org/images/class.jpg
