For making your own materials, you can print many of the boards and charts instead of buying the expensive wooden ones: Math Materials.

I Googled “montessori math DIY” (for “do it yourself”) and found some great results. I’m guessing if you continued Googling similar phrases (and looked through all the results for “montessori math DIY” you’d find tons of other sites with good suggestions.

Most manufacturers of Montessori materials are in Asia, so if you could somehow find a way to order directly from them rather than a distributor, that could work out great for you.

Thank you for the info. I was actually thinking of the Base 10 blocks or something similar. I’m not familiar with the Cuisinaire rods but I’ll read up on them.

Thanks,
Kerry

Keep in mind that the bead stair and the golden beads are two different materials – the bead stair is colored beads strung in groups from 1-9. The golden beads are all golden and found in groups of 1, 10, 100, and 1000.

For work with tens, hundreds, and thousands there’s really no substitute for the golden beads. It’s easy enough to buy golden beads inexpensively on eBay or from a supplier like Alison’s Montessori. Ideally you’d want 10 of each (units, tens, hundreds, and thousands) to be able to use them with presentations.

Your site is extremely helpful and I appreciate the time you put into it. Perhaps you’ve already answered this question but I didn’t find it in searching for it.

Are small cubed blocks a sufficient replacement for the beads or are the beads absolutely essential? It does appear that tens of thousands of beads are needed to teach the math so I assume that many blocks would be needed also? I’m not stuck on the blocks but was wondering if it would be a suitable replacement or not. Also, do you know exactly how many golden and other colors are needed?

Thank you!