The Hundred Board

Aside from the Golden Beads, I also purchased the ever popular Hundred Board.  Now I understand why it is one of the bestselling Montessori materials.  The main function of the board is to familiarize the child of the numbers from 1 to 100 and reinforce the sequence.  But I can see a whole lot more.  At home, we use it for games that teaches patterning, addition and skip counting. 

Here's an example of a simple patterning set-up I have.  You can see missing horizontal and vertical lines for Mavi to complete.  Before we start the game, I let him discuss his observations.  After which I tell him that to complete the board without counting, he needs to see how the pattern goes.  Here on the first set up, the first digit is increasing while the second digit remains the same. 

With the second set-up, the first digit is constant while the second digit is increasing (see the numbers 1-10).

This technique helped him complete the hundred board without starting from 1 or if there's a mixed-up setting.   I was happy that he grasped the concept easily.  At times, I can see him place the tiles on the square by counting and sometimes by just following the order and pattern.

He complains that it's difficult to complete starting from 1, but by introducing some games he was more eager to use it and began enjoying it. 

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The Golden Beads Layout

 

Just wanted to share our recent work with the golden beads material.  I've been contemplating on purchasing these for a long time and I was convinced by fellow Mommy Montessori bloggers that these materials are worth a try.  Actually, I was convinced because now I have two kids to home school. So definitely these are worth-it!

I am using KHT Montessori Math Album in our schooling.

In a nutshell, I introduced the beads (unit, tens, hundreds and thousands) with their corresponding number symbol.  My son loved this.  He was able to tell the difference between the quantities of each number symbol.  He's like "The thousand is soooo heavy!"

  

We also learned how to compose and read bigger numbers! I made a printable of this but my son showed no interest. However when he saw this large number cards, he can't stop using it!  He loves creating his own number.... but somehow still confused on how to read it :) 

 

Well there are a lot of ways to practice composing bigger numbers and one of which is simply writing it down on a paper and have your child recreate the it using the number cards. 

  

Because the beads arrived in the time that my son has a better understanding of quantities (we previously practice making ones and tens), he was able to create this massive layout on his own.  I swear, I just left him and he did all the work in one sitting!

Completing the units...

 

Working on the tens...

 

Then the hundreds...

 

And thousands. Unfortunately, I only have 9 wooden thousand beads so he finished it till 4000 :)

 

It was impressive indeed! How I wish I purchased this early on.  But anyway, there are still a lot of work to be done with the golden beads. We'll be exploring those in the days to come.

This is so exciting!

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The Solar System and The Planets II

My son completed his mini project of our Solar System unit and he finally got to display it in his room.  It was a simple project for my 5 years old, something that I made him work during the midterm break.

I mentioned this previously in my post that we're going to plot the planets in a black craft paper.  First thing, he placed all the INNER PLANETS.  My son memorizes the order so I made he did all the work here.  I decided that it would be best to label the planets so he can memorize the spelling.

As you can see, we added "asteroids"  after Mars.

 

Then he continued with the OUTER PLANETS.

 

When everything is in place, he added stars (stickers).

And we both stick it on the wall using blutacks. And look how pretty it is! He was so happy how it turned out.  He felt proud of what he has accomplished! And I have to say that the use of foil in planets made such a huge difference!!  Now this is art and learning combined :)

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Homemade Grammar Symbols

I finally made our grammar symbols!  So proud of how it turned out. I was on the edge of purchasing the wooden version but they were quite pricey.  Though the paper version was a good alternative but I wanted something durable so I decided to make my own using the foam crafts. 

Can't wait to use them!