Montessori Math Materials
Dr. Montessori recognized the tremendous potential for learning that exists in children. Age is secondary to the drive to learn. Just as you cannot stop children from walking (they’ll just get back up again!), the drive to develop and learn is natural, immutable, and unstoppable. The Montessori Math materials provide children the opportunity to understand concepts in arithmetic and geometry. Beautifully-made Montessori wooden materials draw children to the work, and allow the child to move through the complexity of math, from the concrete to the abstract.
The essential Montessori math materials in a child's first years find roots in the materials, such as the iconic material of the Pink Tower and Geometric Solids. The essence of this exploration is the distinction of form and dimension. Montessori math materials such as the Geometry Cabinet, classify shapes by characteristic and drawer. Whereas traditionally this work is postponed until the child is much older, and then shown abstractly with pictures on a worksheet, Montessori math materials present the concept to much younger children, when they are in a sensitive period to understand it. The squaring and cubing chains comprise the Montessori Bead Cabinet, an essential Montessori math material beautifully displayed on wood shelves and hooks. Representing the squares and cubes of a number, the abstract task of learning one’s multiplication tables is firmly rooted in the concrete.
Montessori math materials are presented in sequence, moving the child from concrete manipulation to an abstract reasoning and computation. The Montessori Snake Game and Montessori Strip Boards, used to add and subtract with actual quantities is supplanted by the Stamp Game, a versatile material that uses Montessori Number Cards and Printed Numerals in brilliant hierarchical colors of green, blue, and red. Next, the child uses the Montessori Bead Frame, on which a bead has value based on its place. The Montessori Checkerboard elegantly teaches the child to compute multiplication abstractly. The Long Division material is an essential Montessori math material that allows students to divide with large dividends and divisors. Children as young as four years old gain experience with the Metal Fraction Insets which presents the concept of fractions, making an easier transition into the four operations as they gain confidence and skill with age and experience. The layout using the Decanomial Bead is both a display of multiplication tables for the young child while revealing the beautiful algebra of a polynomial square to the older child. The consistency and continuity of these wooden and metal Montessori math materials proves the Montessori axiom, “it’s not just what the child learns, but how they learn it”.
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