My Favorite Early Childhood Montessori Material - Preschool / Kindergarten: Golden Bead Material

The Golden Bead Material provides Montessori children with
a concrete understanding of the decimal system

When I first started to learn about Montessori and the materials, just the thought of the math materials made me anxious. But now, I can honestly say it is my favorite curriculum to teach the children. 

The hands-on Montessori materials make it easy to learn even the most difficult concepts, and learning the concrete before the abstract only makes sense.

Montessori children work with the Golden Bead Material to understand
the decimal system, to get a hands-on experience of quantity,
and to solve equations in the four operations

My Favorite Early Childhood Montessori Material - Preschool / Kindergarten: Golden Bead Material

When the children can actually feel and touch the quantities, it helps them remember so much more. Out of all the math materials, I would say that my favorite Montessori material to work with would be the Golden Bead Material. I think it is absolutely brilliant that one golden bead represents a unit; ten unit beads in a line become one 10-bar, representing tens; ten 10-bars together make a 100-square, representing 100s; and if you stack ten 100-squares on top of each other, they become a 1,000-cube, representing 1,000s. Sheer genius!

The Montessori Golden Bead Material

I love that when the children are learning to add, subtract, multiply, and divide with the Golden Bead Material they are active participants in building and solving the equations. What a fun way to learn! I wish I had learned math the Montessori way.

— NAMC Staff

As much as possible, NAMC’s web blog reflects the Montessori curriculum as provided in its teacher training programs. We realize and respect that Montessori schools are unique and may vary their schedules and offerings in accordance with the needs of their individual communities. We hope that our readers will find our articles useful and inspiring as a contribution to the global Montessori community.
© North American Montessori Center - originally posted in its entirety at Montessori Teacher Training on Thursday, October 25, 2012.