The Stamp Game

This child is moving along  through the math curriculum (she is a Kindergartner) and is ready for slightly more abstract materials.  She has used the golden beads for the operation of addition and has now been introduced to the Stamp Game.  Here she uses small tiles which represents units, tens, hundreds and thousands.  In a similar way to the golden beads, two addends are written, here in colored pencil which coordinates with the tiles.  She puts the first addend down on the table. (She likes to line up the tiles perfectly with the ruler- this is something she did on her own.)

The second addend is placed below the ruler.  Once the addends are double checked, the ruler is removed and we slide the tiles up together. 

The tiles are then counted by moving them down slightly.  We always begin in the units.  This way if we go up to ten, we change ten green unit tiles in for a blue one and put it in the appropriate column. 

The sum is then recorded on the sheet.