The Bank: Units, Tens, Hundreds
Ten pieces of pasta make a bag, ten bags make a box: place value you can hold.
The Bank: Units, Tens, Hundreds is a Montessori activity for a child aged 6 to 8 years. Area: Early Math. Time: 20-30 min.
What the activity builds
Understand that ten units of one place value form one unit of the next, by building it yourself.
The materials
- A large quantity of dry pasta or dried beans
- Small bags and about ten boxes or jars
- Three small dishes marked with a color code, one per place value
- A work mat
How to do it, step by step
- Count out ten pieces of pasta together and put them in a bag: that's a ten.
- Make ten bags, counting each time, then put them in a box: that's a hundred.
- Set one hundred, three tens, and five units in front of them.
- Ask them to say how many there are in total, looking at each place value.
- Put each place value back in its dish at the end.
The parent's role
Show once, then step back. Making the tens yourself is the heart of the activity: don't buy pre-made material and don't prepare the bags ahead of time. It's the repeated counting to ten that builds the idea, not handling an object that's already grouped for you.
Safety
Dried pasta and beans are small objects: store everything up high afterward, especially if a younger sibling lives in the house. Raw red kidney beans are toxic, no tasting. Wash hands after.
You remain the sole judge of what is right for your child. These activities are offered for educational and recreational purposes: they do not replace medical advice or the guidance of an early childhood professional.
Ways to adapt the activity
- Easier: stop at the tens, skip the hundreds.
- Harder: build a number you call out, then have them call one out for you.
- Extension: add two numbers by regrouping place values, making a new bag whenever ten units come together.
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