Long Multiplication With the Stamp Game

I presented long multiplication with the stamp game to Little-N. There are many steps in this activity and I was worried that he would get confused, but he understood it so well and only needed one presentation.

Here is an outline of the steps:

Question: 105x12

At first he will get 12 green unit skittles and place down the side of the mat to represent the multiplier. He already knows how to do this from working with the stamp game with short multiplication.

He begins to put out the stamps to represent the multiplicand 105. He soon realises that it will take so long if he has to take out 105 12 times.

We discuss another way of making our multiplier 12 in skittles, he decides to use 1 blue ten skittle and 2 green unit skittles.

He begins to put out the stamps to represent the multiplicand 105. We talk about being fair to each skittle, if we give 1 unit skittle 5 unit stamps then we should give 1 ten skittle 5 ten stamps to be equal. Little-N got it straight away.

After all the stamps have been given out Little-N counts and changed where necessary to find the final answer.
His answer is correct. Now lets try a harder question. Little-N then worked with this independently on some much harder questions. I am so proud with the way that he handled this concept of long multiplication, it was like second nature. He later showed my husband how to do it and my husband was confused.

Lesson to be learnt, some of the later Montessori activities and materials will look very difficult and confusing to an adult, however a child who has gone through the Montessori education will be prepared in so many ways so that each new activity is easy to grasp and understand. Little-N understood this activity quickly because he worked with all the sensorial materials, practical life, mathematics materials, he worked through the golden beads and other activities with the stamp game, everything built his understanding of numbers and mathematics so that when he comes to learn harder concepts he is able to easily grasp them. Do not under estimate the power of a Montessori mind!!!