Recommended Age: 4 to 5 years
Purpose: To help the child associate the categories of the decimal system with their names and symbols and to familiarise the child with the reading of composite numbers. This exercise brings to the child’s awareness that the position of the digit gives it its value and shows that zero in a composite number indicates an empty category (place holder). The child also sees that only nine of any category are needed to make any number.
Level of Parent Involvement: Medium during the initial presentation, once the child has been shown, they may set the exercise up independently and only need the adult to tell them what to bring beads (quantity) or cards (symbol).
Prerequisites
- The child must have worked with the number rods and cards, numbers and counters and the spindle boxes
- The child must be able to identify numeral symbols 0-10
- The child must be able to count accurately up to ten and has started working on counting onwards from ten
- The child must be able to connect numeral symbols with their quantities
0-10
Materials
- Laminating sheets
- Laminator
- 2 large mats (you may use 2 towels or bath mats if you don’t have a suitable work mat to use)
- 2 trays or baskets to keep the card and bead cut outs separate
- 1 tray for the child to bring the numerals and quantities
Preparation
- Print and cut out the decimal system beads from the PDF (keeping the same categories together, you may use an elastic band or a paper clip)
- Print and cut out the decimal system cards from the PDF (keeping the same categories together, you may use an elastic band or a paper clip) NOTE: you only need the one thousand card out of the thousands category for this exercise
- Laminate if possible, to extend the longevity of the materials to encourage repetition and future work with this exercise
Steps
- Invite the child to the activity, letting them know that for this exercise they will need two mats
- Invite the child to lay out 2 mats side by side, leaving enough space between the mats to move around
- Place the tray/basket with the golden bead cut outs on one mat, place the tray/basket with the decimal system cards on the other mat
- Let the child know that you are going to show them how to lay out the cards
- Take the unit cards and begin placing them in a vertical line on the right side of the mat, counting as you place the cards (one unit, two units, three units, four units, five units, six units, seven units, eight units, nine units, if I had one more unit I would have one ten) *see example of how to place cards*
- Place the ten card to the left of the numeral one and place and count onwards (two tens, three tens, four tens, five tens, six tens, seven tens, eight tens, nine tens, if I had one more ten I would have one hundred)
- Place the hundred card to the left of the numeral ten and count onwards (two hundreds, three, hundreds, four hundreds, five hundreds, six hundreds, seven hundreds, eight hundreds, nine hundreds, if I had one more hundred I would have one thousand)
- Place the one thousand card to the left of the numeral one hundred
- Once the cards have been laid out, let the child know you must now set up the bead cards
- Begin laying out the unit cards on the right side of the mat, saying “one unit, two units, three units etc… up to nine units”
- Then say to the child“ and if we had one more unit we would have one ten” then place the ten card next to the first unit ensuring the top bead of the ten bar is in line with the units, continue in the same way up to 1000
- Indicate to the child where to find the tray and bring tray to the mat
- Place a quantity of beads from one category on the tray (for example 4 units)
- Invite the child to get the corresponding number card for their quantity
- You may also place cards on the tray and ask the child to bring the matching beads
- Repeat (however many times depending on the child’s level of interest) taking beads from the top of the mat each time and also show replacing beads from the top
Variations
- Child brings cards from any 2 categories
- Child works with any 3 categories, at this time show the child sliding of the cards by placing the cards on top of each other from longest to shortest with the number aligned to the left and then tap down. May read the card with the child, for example 4 hundreds, 2 tens, 3 units, we can also say four hundred and twenty three
- Child works with any 4 categories
