Sitting back and observing the child without intervening doesn’t come naturally to most adults, but it is a cornerstone of the Montessori method, and for me at least, the more I step back and watch my children as they work, the more I am amazed at what they discover. When they make their own discoveries, they internalize knowledge in a way that they wouldn’t if I simply told them. Two counting works that Gianna and William having been loving lately are perfect examples of this.
William, who is desperate to keep up with his sister, and being quite bright in his own right, has begun to show an interest in counting. In order to solidify the concept of one-to-one counting, as well as the concept that numbers increase in size, William is currently using the Red and Blue Rods. They are one of my all-time favorite materials, simple, elegant, and brilliantly designed. Our set was hand-crafted for us by Mark’s amazing grandfather.
There are 10 rods in the set, all painted in alternating blue and red (hence the name). The rods are carried by the child to their teacher (or in this case parent) on at a time to be counted. I place my hand over William’s and move it down the rod as we count. The dual process- carrying, and counting helps solidify the concept of numbers. The rods increase in length and weight as the numbers get bigger, so that the 10 rod is even taller than William’s head and much, much heavier than the 1 rod, which fits easily in his hand. In addition to helping William internalize the concept of numbers, they also help him to be more aware of his body and his movements. It takes a great deal of concentration and care to move about the classroom with the 10 rod without hitting anyone or anything.
Having mastered the concept of 1-10, Gianna moved into the teen numbers. We have several teen counting works on our shelves, but the one that she is most drawn to is the Teen Boards. These are a set of 2 boards, each with 10s printed on them, and a set of wooden numbers 1-9. They are used with a set of bead bars. She is familiar with the colors of the bars from her work with 1-10. As I give G a set of bars- she counts them and then makes the number by sliding the wooden number into the units space over the 0 of the 10.
There are two important abstract concepts G is grasping with this work. The first is that a teen number is made up of two parts- a ten and a unit, her introduction to place value. This is visually shown to her in the different beads- the 10 bar and the 1 bar together for example make 11. She is also learning it by sliding the number on to the unit space on the board. The other thing that G is internalizing is that the golden bead bar is always 10. So as she has worked with the teen boards, she has reached a point where she no longer has to physically count each bead on the 10 bar. She just starts the next bar at 11. The concept of 10 as represented by the bar has moved into the abstract for her. Moving a child from the concrete to the abstract is a goal in all of the math works in the Montessori method. With the golden bead bars and the colored bead bars, this comes in especially handy as the same bars and colors will be used later on in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
The math curriculum was always one of my very favorite parts of the Montessori method when I was teaching. It is such a joy to be able to watch my own children encounter Montessori materials and explore the world of counting.