Adrian is familiar with Montessori Teen Board and the concept of building teens, so it is time to introduce the Tens Board. (Buy the Teen & Tens Board set here and beads for the Teen Board here or buy an entire set of golden beads here.) Not only a child sees how tens and ones are being added to make larger numbers, but s/he is also physically building them! The presentation is very similar to the Tens Board presentation (see details in this post), but here, you would lay out ten-bars next to each corresponding tens-number: number ten will have one ten-bar, twenty will have two ten-bars next to it, thirty will have three ten-bars and so forth.
Next, you will ask a child to “build” a number. For example, to make thirty-four: generally a child would add four yellow beads to a three ten-bars.
Today, however, instead of colored beads, we are using Spring-inspired counters/manipulatives, so Adrian would add four Easter egg stickers to the number thirty.
Alternatively, to make number 23, you would ask your child to give you three-counters which have to be added to the two-ten bars. After “making” the number as quantity (with ten bars and units), a child will then slide wooden number three on the board over the number twenty, making 23.
This is a very concrete representation of the otherwise very abstract concept. In a Montessori Math curriculum, numbers are broken down into units, tens, hundreds, etc. For example, the child is shown what the number is made up of. The child is holding the two – ten bars, “feeling” the twenty, and adding different units to it, making different numbers. Such presentation substantiates the understanding that if you add three-units to twenty, you will have 23; if you add four units to twenty, you will have 24 and so forth. The more units you add, the bigger the ten-number. Thereafter, similarly, as with the Tens Board presentation, you will present a Three Period Lesson (read how to present here).
If you are interested, I wrote in details about What is Montessori Math? in this post.
For more Easter Inspired activities, see here our roundup post: Easter-Inspired Themed Unit Study.
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