1-5 Bead Stair
The last few Mondays, I’ve focused on DIY Montessori materials. DIY Montessori materials are especially helpful if you have a Montessori homeschool or are using Montessori materials in an environment other than a traditional Montessori school. Many materials, such as practical life materials, can be put together in just a few minutes.
Except for practical life activities, the materials may take longer than a few minutes to create … but many are still very simple to prepare. Today, I want to help parents with preschoolers who are ready for work with Montessori bead bars. The Montessori short bead stair is generally used with children ages 4 and up, although you should always individualize the activity for your own child.
DIY Montessori Bead Bars
(UPDATE): I have a giant bead stair in my “Montessori-Inspired Math Activities Using Wooden Beads and Free Printables.” (photo at the top of the post)
Bead bars from 1-9 are used in Montessori schools for a number of activities, such as counting and addition. For a younger child, you can make a giant bead stair using pipe cleaners and 1” wooden beads for the numbers 1-5.
Note: Colors of the beads can vary according to manufacturer. If you want to be consistent with traditional Nienhuis Montessori bead stairs, use the following colors for each number of beads:
1 – red 2 – green 3 – pink 4 – yellow 5 – light blue 6 – lavender 7 – white 8 – brown 9 – dark blue
Montessori Bead Bars (Photo from A Thousand Joys)
Here’s a photo of the materials used by A Thousand Joys with the teen boards.
DIY Bead Stair from Imagine Our Life
Imagine Our Life has a complete tutorial on making beautiful Montessori bead materials (plus free bead stair printables).
The Pinay Homeschooler has DIY bead bars and links to helpful resources.
Preschool Universe has DIY bead bars using Wikki Stix.
Momma of 4 Cutiez tells about her experiences making Montessori bead bars.
You can make a beautiful set of complete Montessori bead material with beads and wire. Or you can make a simple set for the bead stair and some introductory activities using pony beads and pipe cleaners. Just consider your homeschool and what will work best for your unique family.
Skip Counting Activity (Photo from Counting Coconuts)
Here’s an example of a skip counting activity from Counting Coconuts using pony beads and pipe cleaners. It’s easy to prepare, yet attractive and an effective teaching tool. If you want to use the traditional Montessori colors, use golden beads for 10 bars.
Note: Making Montessori bead bars could be a fun activity for children as well as adults!
Directions for Presenting Montessori Bead Bars
Angie Chan’s Blog has directions for introducing the short bead stair.
Montessori Mom and Shu-Chen Jenny Yen have directions for using the Montessori bead stair for addition.
Montessori Primary Guide has directions for using bead bars to introduce teens quantity as well as ten bars and unit beads for the tens.
If you’d like ideas for more DIY Montessori materials, check out my other DIY Montessori material posts!
Learn more about my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to. Teach Grace and Courtesy!
The Montessori at Home! eBook and Montessori at Home! eBook and Materials Bundle are AMAZING resources! You can learn more about them here. Buy them in the Living Montessori Now shop.
If this is your first time visiting Living Montessori Now, welcome! If you haven’t already, please join us on our Living Montessori Now Facebook page where you’ll find a Free Printable of the Day and lots of inspiration and ideas for parenting and teaching! And please follow me on Pinterest (lots of Montessori-, holiday-, and theme-related boards), and Twitter (blog posts by me and others along with the Parent/Teacher Daily and other interesting information). You can find me on bloglovin’, Instagram, and YouTube, too.
And don’t forget one of the best ways to follow me by signing up for my weekly newsletter. You’ll receive some awesome freebies in the process!
This bead project is an great activity to for parents to use at home. The beauty of Montessori methods is that they can be incorporated into home activities even if your child doesn’t attend a Montessori school. Thanks for sharing this idea.
Thanks for your comment! I agree! I love that Montessori activities work so well for homeschoolers and for parents just wanting to supplement their child’s education at home. 🙂
Nice post. Very timely for me as I am starting to make the long bead chains for my kiddos to use to learn multiplication and square roots. It is nice to have examples of how others accomplished this work. Thank you for the links and for sharing.
Thanks so much! I’m impressed that you’re going to make the long bead chains yourself! A Thousand Joys also had a creative idea in case you don’t have a cabinet for the bead chains: http://athousandjoys.blogspot.com/2009/08/our-temporary-bead-cabinet.html.
Thank you for all of the great links, Deb! The golden bead materials are wonderful, but can really add up. I appreciate these tips!
Thanks, Melissa! It can definitely get expensive to buy a lot of Montessori materials. It’s nice that there are so many that can be made easily and inexpensively. 🙂
What a wonderful idea. As soon as my LO is old enough I will be definitely be making these for his classroom
Thanks, Jessie! That sounds great! 🙂
I’ve been wanting to make my own beads for months now. It always seems like I’m too busy or too tired. LOL. Time to prioritize! Thanks for encouraging me to get it done!
Thanks for your comment, Lori! I can definitely understand your difficulties in finding time to make your own bead materials. When you’re homeschooling (or teaching in general), there are just so many things that always need to be done. Good luck! 🙂
Thanks for such great ideas…I follow you through Facebook also and love the activities you come up with. I am planning on using some of these with my kids. Stopping by from the Hip Homeschool Hop!
Thanks for your kind words, Amy! I hope you find lots of activities that work well for your kids! 🙂
I have tons of beads that I’ve been meaning to do things with. Hopefully this will motivate me.
I’m also your newest follower from the Hip Homeschool hop 🙂
http://www.storm-front.org/
Thanks for your comment, Stormey! Have fun! And thanks for following me! 🙂
You have such great ideas week after week. I wish your website had been around when my kids were littles.
Thanks so much, MissMoe! Since I homeschooled my kids through high school, I do write posts for other ages, too. I think because I was originally a Montessori preschool teacher and have my MA in Early Childhood Studies, I do write most often about preschool through early elementary, though! 🙂
These look cool. I don’t know if my three year old would be ready for these or not but he is getting obsessed with numbers, counting, ordering. I have to say, teaching math is always something I avoided so I’m not even sure where to begin with him. I’m glad you gave lots of links so I can check this out!
Thanks, Jackie! Here’s the link to all my math posts: https://livingmontessorinow.com/category/activities-math/. And this post has links that give an overview of the entire Montessori math curriculum: https://livingmontessorinow.com/2010/09/13/montessori-math-activities/. 🙂
Thank you so much for all your great posts. You are an inspiration and I’m super grateful for your practical suggestions. I love your website!
Thanks so much for your very kind comment, Shelly! Have a wonderful week! 🙂
Thanks for sharing beautiful ideas, it will help me to create my own bead material for my Nursery in Pakistan. Being a Montessorian I am blessed with wonderful people around me.
Best regards,
Shabnum Butt
Thanks so much for your comment, Shabnum! That’s wonderful to hear! 🙂
I love this post – counting beads are a great way for kids to get their hands on numbers!
We made some of these with wikki stix and pony beads – so easy!
I also like the skip counting idea from counting coconuts.
My Niece’s Birthday is coming-up, so this is going to be an excellent activity to try.
Unfortunately, the link to Walk Beside Me isn’t allowing me to view the blog post! Super bummed! I tried using pipe cleaners but it’s hard to curl the ends over in a neat way. I’ll probably still use this method but
Hi Ruth! It’s a bummer that Walk Beside Me is only open by invitation now. I removed the link. I added a link to a wonderful post at Imagine Our Life. You’ll want to check that out if you haven’t seen it already. Good luck with your project! Deb