How to Do the Montessori Birds Eye View Lesson

The Bird's Eye View Lesson should look like this when it is completed.

Montessori golden beads can be used with a variety of other teaching materials to illustrate just about any mathematical operation you might wish to teach or do. One of the best ways to use these beads--which also helps students become familiar with the materials and the concepts of counting, quantities and the decimal system--is the "Bird's Eye View" lesson. This lesson can be done individually or as a group, and demonstrates how numbers can be used to "build" on each other to form larger and larger quantities.

Things You'll Need

• 45 golden bead units
• 45 ten bars
• 45 hundred squares
• 1 thousand cube
• Large number cards
• Mat

Instructions

1. Place the one card in the upper right-hand corner of a large, green felt mat, along with a single golden bead. You can place the number card while the student assigns the bead.

2. Place the number cards 2 through 9 underneath the one card, and have the child line up the beads beside them as you do so. The beads should be arranged vertically so that the child can see that she is gradually "building" a ten bar.

3. Place the number cards 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70. 80 and 90 in a column directly to the left of the ones column while the student lines up the appropriate number of ten bars with each card. The bars should be arranged side by side so that the student can see that he is incrementally building a hundred square.

4. Place the number cards 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800 and 900 in a column to the left of the tens column while the student lines up the appropriate number of hundred squares. The squares should be stacked so that the student can see that she is building a cube with each additional hundred square.

5. Place the thousand card to the left of the hundred card while the student assigns a thousand cube to the area next to it. At this point, you should have three vertical lines of units or ones (on the far right), tens (to the left of the ones) and hundreds. The thousand cube should occupy its own space to the left of the hundreds line.

6. Have the child repeat the exercise on his own. He can do the exercise whenever he wants, and as many times as he likes. It will prepare him for work with the decimal system and for many math processes he will soon be learning.

Tips & Warnings

• Generally, you should not comment on the fact that the numbers "build" on each other, but rather let the student notice this on her own. However, this practice will vary from school to school, and you should check with your child's instructor to be sure that you are working in a complementary manner to her teaching practices.