I want to make sure that all of you know about a quiet Montessori blog you may not have visited yet. While it is relatively easy to find examples of people making their own spindle boxes and sandpaper letters, it is much more rare to see someone tackle cylinder blocks or bead materials. The author of Montessori at Home takes on DIY Montessori tasks that are not for the faint of heart.
I am constantly referring people from other blogs and on Yahoo groups to her series of posts about buying and making your own bead materials. I have finally decided it would be easier to link back to a post here than to repeatedly look up all the links I need and past them into unforgiving message boards and comments boxes.
This post was triggered by a post I read today on the blog Walk Beside Me. The author wrote: "I especially love the versatility of the bead material, but it would cost a ton to buy everything."
One solution is to make your own. The author of Montessori at Home has detailed exactly how many beads of which color you need, where to buy them, and the trials and tribulations of making them. I'll put the links in at the end.
The other solution is to buy only what you need. A homeschool is very different than a full Montessori classroom. To teach at home you only need enough beads to do all of the activities, you do not need enough beads to have all of the activities on your shelf at once. Lucky for us, Montessori at Home has gone ahead and figured out which materials you need to buy in order to have the minimum materials necessary for all activities. They are:
- the Decanomial Bead Bar Box
- the Elementary Negative Snake Game
- the Complete Bead Material
- Forty-five Golden Bead Units
- Forty-five Golden Hundred Squares
EDITED TO ADD: (11/10/11) Now that I am a little further along in the process I think this list is missing 45 wooden 1000 cubes (you can get away with only 9 wooden and one made of beads if you skip the 45 layout and are careful when you do multiplication). Also, be careful when you order the complete bead material. I found out the hard way that some suppliers (cough, cough, Adena) don't include the short chains in their "complete bead material" and you might want a hanger for the short bead chains as well because they are the squaring chains and I think the bead cabinet only holds the cubing chains, cubes, and squares.
Unfortunately, this is still going to run you more than $400. However, that is probably half of what you would pay to have it all. Another bonus is the 100 hours or more of your life you will not spend beading your fingers together trying to make it yourself.
For the broke and the brave among us, here are the links to the information you need to make the materials yourself:
If you would like to see a ton of beautiful pictures of someone making their homemade bead materials as they are in progress, you can see them at Aide a la Vie.
I am currently following the Montessori at Home instructions for making my own continents globe (and starting to wish I had just spent the $20!):
http://moosehuntress.blogspot.com/search?q=globe (instructions are in the comments section)
And for those of you who are truly adventurous, please check out her series on making your own Sensorial materials:
And my personal favorite:
If you have made your own bead materials please add your link if you would like to the McLinky below.
8 comments:
Thank you!
What I've done/decided to do is buy the Intro to Decimal System and Decimal Quantity, the 100 chain and the 1000 chain from one of the discount supplier. Then I made the short bead stair and bead chains, but I made them in the Math U See colors because that is what the elementary kids use. The Math U See blocks are like plastic base 10 blocks, but each quantity is a different color (a unit is green, a 5 bar is light blue, etc.)
I bought the starter set of Math U See (and am going to buy the completer set) so that is basically the decanominal box. Then I have wood base 10 blocks for the rest of the golden bead material. (I got them from a local teacher supply store when they were having their 25% off sale.)
That way, I haven't spent TOO much money, and I haven't had to spend TOO much time building my own, and then my own preschool aged children ease right into Math U See.
45 golden hundred squares? Any reason why just one plus 44 wooden ones wouldn't work? I will buy them all if necessary but that puts me at $576 without the bead cabinet...just wondering if I misunderstood you.
Thanks for all your work on presenting this information to the rest of us!
2p,
No, no reason at all. The mom I was quoting here was MAKING her own materials so had the luxury of making everything from beads. Once you are doing your own beading it is probably easier to keep going with beads than to also learn how to make the things from wood. I purchased 45 wooden hundred squares. I also felt as though 45 thousand cubes was "missing" from this list so purchased those as well.
The thread of "who" I was quoting and "why" probably got a little lost there.
There are instructions for making your own wooden hundred squares and thousand cubes in the Ultimate Homemade Montessori Materials Collaboration under "Math."
OK, that's exactly what I was thinking. My husband is wondering if the 1000 cubes are necessary but, as far as I'm concerned, if the whole point is to visualize (and get the "feel" of) what 1000 or 9000 is, it's a must. Thank you so much for your time!
I am so impressed with all of the materials that you have made. Your tutorials are a "Godsend" to everyone that reads your Blog. You are a very creative student of mine. Bravo! Karen
Wow! I'm honoured! I can't believe that someone else has an entire blog post about my blog!
You were correct when you answered 2p's question about why I was making 45 hundred squares. It actually takes less time and effort to get them done with beads than it would to have them in wood. Not because of the actual length of time it takes to make the material, but because of the length of time it takes me to get my father to set up his saw and help with the cutting.
Plus, as a man who personally cuts all his own wood, for firewood and for building, he just about has a fit any time he finds out that I've actually paid money to buy wood (whether dowels, blocks, or anything else).
Someday I'm going to get my own saw (though I have yet to decide whether I'm going to go for a mitre saw or a table saw), but until them I'm at his mercy!
By the way, I'm going to soon be continuing the series as I'm currently working on the long and short bead chains in anticipation of upcoming lessons in skip counting.
Thank you so much, My Boys' Teacher, for all of the positive press. I've been getting a lot of referrals from this post and I was so encouraged to find your glowing review.
Blessings,
Homeschooler
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