Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Montessori Math Discussion for Parents at Home

If you send your child to a good Montessori school starting at the age of three, your child will start learning about counting and quantities using hands-one equipment ranging from cards and counters to Red and Blue Rods (see our archived articles for details), moving up to more advanced exercises such as long addition and division in the well-known Banker's Game with the Golden Beads. You can easily monitor your child's progress by learning a bit about the equipment and observing a class.

However, what about parents who are starting at home in mid-stream, say, with a five or six year old? A lot of people are tempted to buy equipment and rush through the process, so their child can "catch up" with the normal Montessori curriculum.

We highly suggest starting from the beginning, even if this means your five year old will be working with Math Spindles, Red Rods, or Sandpaper Numerals. The important concepts related to relative size, quantity, and numerals remain key to building a solid foundation in math at any age, so do not skimp on the basics to move your child ahead quickly!

The Golden Bead introductory exercise will quickly enable your child to begin more complex math exercises! For more details, send us a note or subscribe to our Montessori Curriculum Newsletters.


Children in the Primary class typically work with the advanced arithmetic mentioned above as well as fractions from one whole to one-tenth, the Binomial cube (a precursor to algebra), and ratios and percents.

9 comments:

lt (lindsey thomson) said...

hi,
i appreciate any help. my 12 yr old son is having issue with:
two unit multipliers & i have read the material but am not able to explain it to home such that he understands.
if someone can explain "two unit multipliers" in such a way that a 12 yr old can understand, i would very much appreciate any & all help.
i have goolged/etc but to no avail.
thx much,
lindsey thomson

Montessori House said...

Hi,

If you send in a specific problem from your son's two unit multiplier math work, I will use it in a sample exercise to show how we would explain it.

Look forward to hearing back from you!

Kim

lt (lindsey thomson) said...

hi,
been very busy lately so sorry for the delay in responding.

the math problem is:
use two unit multipliers to convert 10000"2 (ten thousand square inches) to '2 (square feet).

the answer is in the back of the book but it does no good if the process is not known/understood.
i am big on helping him to learn the process so he can figure out the answer on his own.
i do not provide "just the answers".
in this case though, i do not understand enough about the process to help him.

appreciate any help, many thx.....

lt (lindsey thomson)

lt (lindsey thomson) said...

i understand that "two unit multipliers" are basically "dimensional analysis". is this true?
i have googled "dimensional analysis" with great results.
appreciate any help.

lt (lindsey thomson)

nilou said...

Hello,
Is there any one Montessori math book I could start using for a fifth grader who has not had a Motnessori eudcation? It could even go back to third and fourth grade to teach the deeper understanding of math he lacks.

Appreciate it,

Nilou

Montessori House said...

Hi,

Normally, we do not use textbooks per se in the Montessori classroom (we use more manipulatives that can be handled and less paper based material), but it sounds like you are looking for a curriculum to follow to help your child...Depending on your child's current math level, our curriculum guide for the Junior class might be useful. It covers material such as long addition through long division, fractions, decimals, geometry, angles, square roots, and so forth. You can find more details on our site www.MyMontessoriHouse.com

If you send me your email, I can send a sample, too. But it would really help to know what sort of math your child has already mastered.

Hope this helps!
Kim

nilou said...

Kim,
Thanks for responding to me. My son is in 5th grade and has always had superior reading verbal reasoning skills, but lower than average math and math reasoning skills.He is doing division, but I don't understand how he still doesn't know how to do two-three digits. He has a hard time thinking mathematically and solving problems. His school does not teach Montessori and I believe that with some Montessori methods and using manipulatives he may come to get a deeper understanding (my 5-year old daughter is going to a Montessori school and I see how much deeper thinking and understanding is involved).I want to buy some Montessori math items to teach him at home but don't know which ones, not to go too expensive.

Niloufar

Montessori House said...

Dear Nilou,

Thanks for your notes! You'll notice I rejected an earlier short comment because you had sent me your email address in it and I figured you probably didn't want it posted. got your email and glad you liked the curriculum newsletter!

Kind regards, Kim

nilou said...

I could not find the junior curriculum, only up to 3rd grade!

niloufar