It's the time of our 12 Month of Montessori Series, and today I'm sharing with you how Mavi learned the concept of the decimal system and base 10 using the Montessori golden beads materials. We worked on this when he was about 4yrs old and at times he still wanted to do the complete layout (see the bottom of the post for this). The aim of studying the decimal system is for the child to understand, organize and classify the numerical quantities into different hierarchies of units, tens, hundreds and thousands.
One of the best thing about these golden beads material is that it provides a sensorial approach in learning mathematics. In using the golden beads, a child can easily differentiate a unit from tens, from hundreds and thousands through its depth, weight and quantity. In effect, there is retention to the concepts because the child can easily visualize the quantity of numbers.
So without further ado, here’s Mavi’s presentation of how we use the golden beads in learning the decimal system.
Units, Tens, Hundreds, Thousands
![DSC_0122_thumb[2]](http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-pPEWRXcNTnE/VfatQ_pKkcI/AAAAAAAARro/GPtyVWEL2qI/s1600-h/DSC_0122_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg "DSC_0122_thumb[2]")
Here’s a short presentation which Mavi and I created on how to use the materials in introducing units, tens, hundreds and thousands.
Now for the overall view of the decimal system, combining the number symbols and the quantity, here’s Mavi working on the decimal system layout. Sorry if he only worked till 4000, as we do not have enough thousand cubes 
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
This post is part of the 12 Months of Montessori Learning which is hosted by Natural Beach Living and The Natural Homeschool.
Amazing blogs involved in the 12 Months of Montessori Learning
