1,000 bead chain

Material Description:

 The 1,000 chain made up of a hundred ‘bars of ten’, a larger ring connects them at each 100,
ten ‘bars of ten’ joined together
 Ten square of 100 in Golden Beads and one cube of one thousand
 Small arrows 1-9 in green, 10 to 90 in blue, 100 to 900 in red, and 1,000 in green in a box
 A tray, a felt mat and Working Mats

Presentation:

 Lay out the 1000 chain mat

 Go to the bead material with the child and show her how to hold the thousands chain, by
unhooking the larger rings and placing one at a time on the index of your left finger
 Lay the 1000s chain on the mat, laying it out fully and bring the other materials
 Fold the 1000s chain into ten squares of one hundred and compare them with the ‘square of
a hundred’, first superimposing them, then stacking the ‘squares of a hundred’ to allow the
child to compare it to the ‘cube of a thousand’, lastly place it to one side.
 Pull the chain slowly into a straight line, showing that ‘rods of ten’ can be put together to form
a thousands chain
 Introduce the arrows read some out loud with the child and group them, non-sequentially into
their different categories
 Count and place the green arrows beside the first nine beads
 Place the blue arrow ’10’ by the tenth bead continue with the blue arrows counting each
bead till 90.
 Put a red arrow by 100 and continue till 900
 Place the green arrow of 1,000 by the final bead
 Finally place the ‘square of a hundred’ after each hundred and the ‘cube of a thousand’ at
the end of the chain
 Read all the arrows forwards and backwards

Exercises:

 The child’s own activity with the material

 Mix the arrows, give the child one at a time and let her read and place it by the chain. She
counts and places the arrows
 Without using the chain, ask the child to give you the arrow and then the next number until
you build a list of arrows in sequence

Criteria of Perfection (Control of Error):

 The labels must fit the last of each bead bar as the child counts the beads. Thus the child
easily sees at the end of a chain if she has made an error in counting
Direct Aim:

 To give the child practice in linear counting

 To reinforce the sequence of numbers up to 1,000
 To consolidate the child’s knowledge of counting
 To show the striking difference between the chain of 100 and 1,000, which is the difference
between 102 and 103

Indirect Aim:

 Preparation for multiplication

 Preparation for squaring and cubing

Age at Presentation:
Five to five and a half years
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Materi