Learning the numbers

I bought a “Home Edition” of Montessori materials more than a year back, after reading about the Montessori Method and being convinced of its sound basis as a means of assisting children learn the abstract via the concrete.

It was not cheap, and cost me close to 2 hundred dollars including courier from China, but the materials sold in Singapore were outrageously expensive (about 10 times more).

When the box of materials arrived, I opened it excitedly like a child on Christmas Day. After looking at the bewildering assortment of apparatus, it became evident that this was something to be done in stages, as my son matured slowly.

And so we started with The Brown Stairs, the Pink Tower, the Spindles, and the Fraction Skittles. We had fun with the Sound Blocks but what I was really itching to use were the concrete materials which would teach him numeracy.

Christian was finally ready to use The Hundred Board and the Cards & Counters. I dug the big box of materials out from the warehouse after hearing his interest in counting to 1 hundred. After a couple of times when we recited numbers 1 – 100 in the car, i recalled that there was a montessori exercise which would help him visualise the numbers.

First we played with the counters, and numerical cards. He had no problems placing the numbers from 0 – 10 and placing the appropriate number of counters beneath each card. (It was more of a challenge getting him to place it in the exact position I needed to perform my ‘magic trick’.) After he finished with it, I showed him which of the numbers / counters could be divided into 2. Those that could not, i pushed the cards up a little higher than the rest, and after we went through the numbers up till 10, I pointed out the difference between “even” and “odd” numbers. It seemed like a great way to teach a child, and he seemed to get the idea. We just have to revise a few more times for him to remember the concept.

He didn’t have much patience with The Hundred Board, and only managed up to 60 before he started dithering, so I let him continue after his nap. It looks like a very simple exercise, but it is great for illustrating the patterns in the numbers. For instance, i could point out to Christian that all the numbers in the same column ended with the same digit, and almost all the numbers in the same row started with the same digit.

I am grateful to Montessori sites such as Montessori Primary Guide for providing the basic instructions. There are also some great youtube videos which show the precise method of presenting the various exercises to children.

Hoping I can do more with Christian in this area before I go back to work!