The Strip Boards

Addition Strip Board (presentation one)

What is the Addition Strip Board?

The Addition Strip Board is a rectangular board that is used to teach the child addition. The board is divided into 18 squares from left to right and 11 squares from top to bottom. There are numbers above the squares from 1-18 (1-10 in red, 11-18 in blue). There is a red line dividing the board vertically after the 10th square.

There are two sets of wooden number strips from 1-9 ( one set is blue and the other set is red), the strips vary in length from the shortest 1-strip to the longest 9-strip.

We use the Addition Series 1/2/3 sum cards for this activity, a whiteboard marker, and a cloth.

How is the first presentation with the Addition Strip Board presented?

The directress begins by asking the child to build the blue strips into a stair from 1-9 on the left-hand side of the board, while she builds the red strips from 1 - 9 on the right-hand side of the board.

The aim of this activity is to make bonds of ten. The directress takes the number 9-blue strip from the stair and places it in the 1-9 collum on the board, she then asks the child “how many more red strips do we need to make 10?” The child begins to count the remaining strip and says “one”. He then takes the number 1-red strip and places it next to the blue number 9-strip on the board. The directress tells the child that “nine and one make ten”. The strips are replaced back and the directress continues in the same manner with 8 and 2, 7 and 3, and so on.

What does the child learn by doing this activity?

The child gets further practice with addition and making bonds of ten, it introduces a different way of doing addition as well as reinforces the concept of addition.

Looking for more Montessori activities?

Here is a list of all the Montessori Maths activities including Early Maths, Introduction to the Decimal System, Seguin Boards, The Hundred Board, The Short Bead Stair, Bead Chains, The Snake Game, Group Operations, The Large Number Rods, Recording with the Small Number Rods, The Short Bead Stair, The Strip Boards, The Boards, The Stamp Game, The Abacus, The Dot Game, and Fractions. Just click on the page you want to learn about to go there.