Fun with Addition

Joyce has been having fun with addition using the golden beads and the colored bead stairs. We followed the album pages from MWEI and MTC for the golden bead addition exercises. For now, we're using two instead of three addends because we don't have space to put all the beads and number cards on our coffee table :) We've began with addends that will not involve exchanging. Here're two examples from her notebook (I forgot that she knows how to use a ruler... oh well, next time :) We have been "adding" using the colored bead bars as well. Many thanks to Lori at Montessori for Everyone who provided the ideas for the Bead Stairs. We've tried Making Ten which allows the child to become familiar with combinations that make up ten:

Let the child pick a bar from the left set:
Ask "How many more do we need to make ten?" And then count with the child. Let the child get the corresponding bar and place it to show that they add up to ten.
Then, we perform the reverse equations and let the child notice the symmetry. The Addition Snake Game is Joyce's favourite for the moment. We used the MTC and
NAMC albums as reference. Here are the required materials:
- ten bars
- one black and white bead stair
- five colored bead stairs
- red felt mat
- notched cardboard marker
- (optional) a pointed stick (like a long toothpick) for counting beads
Set up the black and white bead stair and the cardboard marker:
Let the child choose a bunch of colored bead bars and arrange in the shape of a "snake."
Count along the chain. When you reach ten, stop and place cardboard marker over the bar after the tenth bead. "Oh, we've counted to ten. So we can exchange it with a ten bar." Place ten bar above the counted beads. Count the remaining number of beads on that bar (e.g. 7 in this case). Get the corresponding black and white bar above the counted beads. Place the cardboard back to its original position and put the counted colored bead bars into the empty bin for the black and white bead bars. Join the ten bar and black and white bar into the snake.
Start counting at the first black bead. Repeat the process:
- count up to ten
- get ten bar
- count remaining beads on colored bead bar
- get corresponding black and white bar
- remove cardboard, put bead bars back
- join ten bar and black and white bar into snake
After all color bead bars have been counted, show the child that the sum of all the color bead bars equal the ten bar plus black and white bead bar (if any) (e.g. 34 in this case). The child may write the equation in her notebook (9+8+7+6+4=34).
There are more variations to this game, such as using the same colored bead bars to make up the snake, and this is a great way to introduce multiplication.