Counting through with the Golden beads

What are the Montessori Golden Beads?

Counting through with the Golden Beads in an activity for the child to count through the tray, containing, nine-unit beads, nine ten bead-bars, nine hundred bead squares, and one thousand bead cube. This activity requires a piece of felt so the beads do not roll around.

How is this activity presented?

The directress shows the child how to hold the tray carefully to the table with two hands as well as the piece of felt. She tells the child that they will count the beads in the tray starting with units. She begins by counting the units in the tray, as she counts each one she replaces it from the tray onto the felt on the far right-hand side. The directress begins as so… “one unit, two units, three units” and so on until reaching nine units. When she gets to nine units she says “and one more unit would be the same as ten” picking a ten-bead bar and places it to the left of the units at the top of the mat.

She continues in the same manner with tens, counting “one ten, two tens, three tens” and so on until reaching nine tens. When she gets to nine tens, she says “and one more ten would be the same as one hundred” placing the hundred bead square to the left of the ten-bead bars at the top of the mat.

The directress does the same with the hundreds, counting “one hundred, two hundreds, three hundreds” until she reaches nine hundreds. When she gets to nine hundreds she says “ and one more hundred would be the same as one thousand, placing the thousand cube to the left of the hundred squares at the top of the mat.

The child is encouraged to count with the directress and help her place the beads.

What does the child learn by counting through with the Golden Beads?

This is a wonderful activity for the child to count through the tray and for him to become more aware with units, tens, hundreds, and thousands, this activity teaches the child how to change hierarchies after nine, as well as it helps the child to acquire a sensorial comparison of quantities.

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.