About the Montessori Bead Bars Math Material
The Montessori Bead Bars math material is one of my favorite materials to build a strong foundation of basic math concepts. It is a set of colorful bead bars from 1-10. This material is one of my Top Ten! The Bead Bar material and lessons give an auditory, tactile, kinesthetic, logical, and visual understanding of number sense, operations with numbers, and basic math facts.
The Montessori Bead Bars Math Lessons
There are several lessons you can give using this material that will help your child build a strong foundation for number sense and addition, subtraction, and multiplication. These lessons are:
- The Bead Stair
- The Addition Snake Game
- The Teen Board
- Memorization of Addition Facts Games
- The Multiplication Snake Game
- Memorization of Multiplication Facts Games
- The Subtraction Snake Game
- Place Value with “Infinity Street”
- The Multiplication Checkerboard (multi-digit multiplication)
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The Bead Stair Lesson
The Bead Stair lesson aims to teach children the quantity-number connection, to count linearly from 1-10, and to familiarize children with the color of each bead bar representing the numbers 1-10. Suitable for ages 3-9.
Children name all 10 bead bars and place them on a work surface to form a triangle or stair shape with the one-bead at the top and the ten-bead at the bottom.
The Addition Snake Game Lessons
The Addition Snake Game supports linear counting 1-10 and introduces addition facts, ways to make 10, and multiple addend addition. Indirectly it teaches organization, concentration, and order. Suitable for ages 4-9.
Children lay out the bead bars math material on a work surface in a long snake formation. Next, they count the beads from left to right exchanging for a golden 10-bead bar every time they reach a sum of ten. Children use black and white placeholder beads when the reach ten in the middle of a bead bar.
The Teens and Teen Board Lessons
The Teen Board lessons aim to teach the quantity and written numerals of the teen numbers, linear counting past 10, and addition facts of 10+ single digit numbers (1-9). Suitable for ages 4-9.
The child lays out 10-bead bars vertically on the work surface adding colored unit bead bars to make the teen numbers.
Memorization of Addition Facts Games
Other memorization games for addition can be played using the Bead Bars math material including:
- Use with flashcards or prepared equation slips
- Show the commutative property: 6+7= 13, 7+6= 13
- Show the associative property: (3+5)+7=; 8 +7= 15
- Multiple addend Addition: 4+9+6+8+7+2 (look for tens)
- Addends larger than 10 (to use addition facts in units and tens place) 13+25 = 38
- Fact Families (addition and subtraction) 4+3 = 7, 3+4 = 7; 7-4 = 3, 7-3 = 4
The Multiplication Snake Game
The Multiplication Snake Game aims to teach multiplication facts and review addition facts. Suitable for ages 5-9.
First, children choose only three or four bead bars but lay out several of each on the work surface. Next, they count and exchange for ten as in the Addition Snake Game, but must gather a set of the same-colored beads and use multiplication at the end to verify a correct answer.
Memorization of Multiplication Facts
Other memorization games for multiplication can be played using the Bead Bars math material including:
- Lay out multiple sets of a number: 4×1, 4×2, 4×3, etc.
- Use flashcards, equation slips, or the x table to represent facts: (3 sets of 8, 4 sets of 5)
- Make a chain to skip count, labeling each multiple in the chain
- Choose a product and find the factors that make it (12: 1×12, 2×6, 3×4, etc.)
- Reverse factors of the same product: 4×6, 6×4
- Create square numbers: 3×3=9, 8×8=64, etc.
- Binomials: 4x (4+6), and squares of binomials and trinomials
- Lay out the Decanomial: All the multiplication tables from 1×1-10×10 are represented with beads
The Subtraction Snake Game
The Subtraction Snake Game aims to teach subtraction facts and to review addition facts. Suitable for ages 5-9.
First, the Child arranges colored beads on the work surface inserting grey-colored beads among the colored beads to indicate the number that must be subtracted. Next, they count beads exchanging for ten, but stop to subtract an amount whenever a grey bead is reached.
The Infinity Street Hierarchy Lesson for Place Value
The Infinity Street lesson aims to teach place value hierarchy, commas in numbers, and the reading and writing of large numbers. Suitable for ages 5-9.
First, children lay out yellow houses representing hierarchy families in numbers. Next, they place three colored beads within each yellow house to create a number. A mailbox is placed between each house to represent the commas in a number.
The Multiplication Checkerboard
The Multiplication Checkerboard lesson aims to teach multi-digit multiplication equations and support the memorization of facts. Indirectly it teaches organization, concentration, and order. Suitable for ages 6-9.
First, children place number tiles along the bottom of the board to show the number being multiplied. Next, they place a number tile to show how many times to multiply the number. Lastly, they lay out bead bars in the appropriate squares to show the product.
This illustrates how versatile the Bead Bar material can be and inspires you with activities and games to help your children and students with linear counting, math facts, simple equations, and place value. Have you used the material with success? Have you found a way to use the Bead Bars that I haven’t mentioned here? Please share! I would love to hear what is working for you.
To purchase the Decanomial Bead Bars click HERE.
The next material in the Montessori math sequence is The Golden Bead Material. Click HERE to see lessons with the Golden Beads!
Which lesson with the Montessori Bead Bars would benefit your child’s learning best? What support do you need to start using the Bead Bars? Have you used the Montessori Bead Bars before? What worked, or didn’t work? Comment below!