Montessori Golden Beads

     We have been working a lot with the Montessori Golden Beads. I began a few weeks ago with the introduction of the beads. The golden beads are used to help children understand unit quantities of ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands. The beads are all the same size. A single bead is called a "unit." Ten beads strung together are a "ten." Ten ten-bars side by side is called a hundred square. One thousand is 10 hundred squares stacked together making a thousand cube.

     I made a mat for Kaylee's golden beads. This is to help her put the beads in the correct column and to prepare for golden bead addition. In the pictures, Kaylee is using her small number cards and golden beads to form numbers. I said a specific number of beads and she retrieved them and put them on her chart. Then, she found the corresponding number cards and read the number to me. It is a lot of fun. Kaylee likes the challenge of the large numbers.

Forming and reading the large numbers.