Preschool Montessori Methods

Video Transcript

"This is the math area at Northstar Montessori Preschool. This is the pre-K kindergarten classroom. So you can see the natural progression of some of the math activities that we do. These are called the red and blue rods or the numerical rods, generally they are red and blue, ours just happen to be a natural and blue. We do a lot with putting the numerals with the quantity of items such as, this is one, all the way to ten, so the children put the card along where it matches that. We do a lot with puzzles with matching. One of the things that the children really love, we'll do an activity where we'll say bring me three-thousand, bring me two-hundred, bring me fifty, and bring me four. With each one they would get these items to match the quantity I've asked for. And by looking at this, they can't tell me what the number is, they have to see what is right in front of them. And then we'll say do the magic slide, three-thousand, two-hundred, and fifty-four. And they're always right because it's right in front of them. And so that's actually something that Montessori is all about, trying to make things that are otherwise really abstract into something that's very concrete so the children can really visualize and see exactly what they're supposed to be doing. When they can hold it and touch it they get a much better sense of what they're talking about."