Teens and Tens with Bead Bars

Using the colored unit bars (from the Short Bead Stair) alongside the golden ten-bar reinforces that teens are composed of 10 plus a specific unit quantity.

• Framework: Montessori
• Unit: Mathematics
• Learning area: Linear Counting
• Level: Ages 4-5

Objectives

• Build teen numbers with ten-bar and unit bars
• Reinforce teens as 10 + units
• Develop fluency with 11-19

Materials

• Golden bead ten-bars
• Colored unit bead bars (1-9)
• Teen numeral cards

Instructions

1. Place golden ten-bar. 'This is ten.' 2. Add red 1-bar: 'Ten and one is eleven.' 3. Add green 2-bar to new ten-bar: 'Ten and two is twelve.' 4. Continue through 19. 5. Match to numeral cards. 6. Scramble cards, child builds from card.

Educator tip

The colored unit bars add sensorial clarity—children see that the 'three' in 'thirteen' is the same pink bar they know from the bead stair.

Assessment

Child builds and names all teen numbers using ten-bars and colored unit bars.

More from Mathematics

• Fraction Skittles
• Fraction Nomenclature
• Geometric Cabinet
• Perimeter Exploration
• Area Introduction with Unit Squares
• Place Value Chart Building
• Number Composition and Decomposition
• Ordinal Numbers