Montessori at our home - 8 - Geometry stick box

Finally, found some time to post our prized possessions.

The Geometry Stick Box and Board

We used the stick board and got some of the concepts cleared

• Convergent Lines
• Divergent Lines
• Parallel Lines
• Equilateral Triangle
• Isoceles Triangle
• Scalene Triangle
• Different polygons, quadrilaterals

 Here is the other material I got -

Power of 2 Cubes

Binomial Cube

There are a number of presentations available online for the binomial cube, much less for the power of 2 cube - I am yet to successfully figure it out.  Binomial cube is a visual representation of

(a+b)³

The cube lays the foundation to the formula.

Binomial Squares

We can also use the squares to get to (a+b)² .  While I wanted to get the squares for all numbers - 2 - 10 from http://montessorisupplyindia.com, I got the stock only for one  hundred square.

The technique for introducing binomial square is very simple - Use two rubber bands and ask the child to make 2 smaller squares from the bigger square. My guru is the online video series from EdVid on youtube.

Ed-Vid : Binomial Square Video

So, since we have the decanomial material made from "maths notebook" - We are going to be doing this using the paper decanomial material.  This will also be fun - children can "cut" the individual pieces and then put them together.  I am sure this is going to be an interesting activity.

Montessori at our home - 7 - Fractions - Part I

There are a lot of materials online on Fractions and Fraction Insets.  However, I was really looking for albums on how to move towards Fraction related basic operations

For that, we needed to do some work prior to these operations by themselves, such as -

• Knowing LCM in case of complex Fraction addition where denominator is not the same
• Reducing Fractions

This led me to multiples, factors, HCF, LCM, proper, improper fractions, mixed fractions etc

So much - so finally, we made a humble beginning by making the cutouts.

We made the fraction cut-outs at home - after taking printouts of Fraction Circles from Montessori Mom.

Here is our fraction box and a fraction practice activity gift from his Aunt.

We have since then moved on to describing the numerator, denominator, proper fraction, improper fraction. He is right now doing conversion of an improper fraction into Mixed form.

We also deviated a bit and did multiples and factors.  My source primarily has been Montessori Commons for this activity.  We haven't yet reached Prime Numbers. But, he has already got a hang that there are numbers that have only 2 factors, 1 & the number itself. 

We have also got the Fraction Tower activity set.


We still need to go through some activities before we get to the Tower. That includes Decimal, Decimal operations, Centesimal Frame.