Purpose:

Age:

Materials:

• Bead Material consisting of 9 Unit Beads, 9 Ten Bead Bars, 9 One Hundred Squares and 1 Thousand Cube
• Decimal System Presentation Tray

Presentation:

1. Invite a child to roll out a mat
2. Place the Presentation Tray on the mat
3. Pick up one Unit Bead, and place it in front of the child. Ask the child, “ How many is this?”
4. The child should respond by saying, “One”
5. The teacher answers by saying, “Yes, this is one Unit”
6. Place the Unit Bead to the right side of the mat
7. Take a second Unit and place it directly underneath, so that it is touching the first Unit. Ask the child how many Units there are now.
8. The child should reply, “Two Units”
9. Continue placing the Unit Beads in the above fashion until all nine Unit Beads have been laid out and counted.
10. As the child, “What comes after nine Units?” The child should reply, “Ten Units”
11. Produce one Ten Bead Bar. Ask the child to count all of the Beads on the Bar and tell you how many there are. The child will answer, “Ten”
12. Explain to the child that “We call this Bar, one Ten”
13. Lay out a second Ten Bead Bar right beside the first and ask the child how many there are now. The child should reply, “Two” Say, “Yes, we have two Tens”
14. Continue the activity until all nine Bars have been laid out and counted
15. Ask the child “What comes after nine Tens?” The child may reply, “Ten Tens”
16. Lay out one Hundred Square and show the child how to run her finger down the Ten Bead Bars, one at a time, counting them as she does so. The child will count ten Tens. Tell her, “We call this One Hundred.”
17. Repeat the counting process with the Hundreds in exactly the same manner as you did with the Units and Ten Bead Bars, this time referring to the progression as such: One Hundred, Two Hundreds, Three Hundreds, etc. When counting out the Hundred Squares, stack them vertically, one on top of the other.
18. After the child has counted nine Hundred, ask her what comes next. The child may reply, “Ten Hundreds”
19. Produce the Thousand Cube and ask the child to count the Hundred Squares which are wired together to create it. The child should inform you that there are “Ten Hundreds.” Tell her that she is correct, and that “We call this One Thousand.”
20. Repeat the names of each of the four hierarchies: “Units, Tens, Hundreds, Thousands.”

• Note: When working with the decimal system, the material is always placed with the largest numbers (concrete or abstract) from left to right, just the way numbers are written.