Montessori Checkerboard Multiplication

One of the many materials made for learning multiplication in the Montessori classroom is the checkerboard. This one is a favorite in our house - even with my youngest who normally doesn't "like" math. Even she asks to do this work just for fun some days.

The colorful checkerboard materials build upon child's prior knowledge. When children begin with the familiar, there is no reason to panic when learning more challenging concepts.

The colors green, blue, and red representing the ones, tens, and hundreds place values are repeated from previous materials to give the child a sense of mastery.

The beads are the same colors and represent the same amounts as the bead cabinet found in Montessori preschools and early elementary classrooms.

The multiplicand is placed on the bottom and the multiplier is placed along the side.

The child sets out three bead-bars, four times.

The child sees that 3x4=12 and exchanges by putting a two bead-bar in the ones place and carrying a one bead to the tens place.

My youngest rolls a die to come up with her own problems to solve at this first level of multiplication. Eventually moving up to multipling large numbers - up to the millions!

Here is an example of her performing 214 X 3 =

She sets up the checkerboard with beads representing the numbers she's selected.

Now her board is ready for her to do some exchanging. We always start with the "units" place so her first exchange comes with those beads in the green square.

If she knows that 3 X 4 = 12, she can simply do the exchange.

If she has not yet memorized this answer, then she can count the beads to come to the answer of "12".  (That's the lovely thing about Montessori materials - the teacher doesn't have to correct the child, because the material is self-correcting!)

With the checkerboard, the number 12 would be shown with a 1 in the tens place (blue square) and a 2 in the units place (green square).

  

She documents her work as she goes.

My daughter is still using other materials to learn her multiplication facts, but I've found that there is no need to wait to perform these larger operations, while learning her facts at the same time.  It makes it more fun for her as she feels like she's performing "big kid" work - and she is!


The checkerboard can be used for bigger, more advanced operations too. These multiple digit divisors use what we call the "magic slide".

Stay tuned for an example of that once we get there!  Here is a good video to help you out in the meantime: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmougAurzOk