

ADDITION 



are kept small, and the combinations up to ten 

 are seen and mastered, but this period must 

 not be made too long. Adults incline to 

 linger too long here because of their conscious- 

 ness of the decimal notation (see NOTATION), 

 and the written form due to that notation. 

 The child will not hesitate long before 9 and 

 10 or 10 and 11. He waits only to get a name 

 for his new number. Give him the earliest 

 opportunity to play the game the race has 

 played in its most serious computations the 

 game on the sand table. The pupil himself 

 cannot built the sand table. The adult who 

 does it need not produce the most finished 

 piece of work. The child will be as well pleased 

 and will be fully as well instructed if he has 

 access to something which will merely hold the 

 sand. He can have his sand pan in the school- 

 room or in the playroom at home or out in the 

 yard. The sand pan prepared, he must gather 

 some small stones. Now he is ready for the 

 game, and he will play it with as much pleasure 

 as profit. 



Teacher or mother counts pennies, dollars, 

 eggs, plants, minutes, children, desks. The 

 child puts down a small stone as a counter for 

 each count the teacher or mother makes. 

 When he has 10 stones in his first furrow, the 

 teacher tells him to take them all up in his 

 hand, and put one in the second furrow, thus: 



ADDITION 



row a second time and the child makes the 

 change and his pan looks like this: 



She tells him that that one means one ten, 



that it is the same as ten in the first furrow. Then 



start anew taking out this last stone. Teacher 



starts to count; the child puts down a stone 



h count, and when he reaches 10, he 



makes the change as above, but this time the 



r goes on counting and he puts 1, 2 or 



3 stones in the first furrow so his sand table 



looks hk. 



Do it again and have 4, 5 or any number 

 first furrow. After much of 

 'he teacher goes on counting until the 

 'hil.l has dropped 10 counters in tl 



She goes on until he has several counters in 

 the first furrow, and his pan looks like this: 



This is great fun to the child, and through 

 the very concreteness of it and the joyous 

 repetition of it he gets hold of the meaning 

 of the decimal system of notation. It must be 

 carried into hundreds when he is ready for it, 

 with many repetitions, as with the tens. Let 

 the child show his teacher and other mem- 

 bers of the class numbers represented on his 

 pan, and see if they can read them; for 

 example : 



Then l< t numbers of the class give him 

 numbers to represent on the pan, and let them 

 use the stones to represent numbers which he 

 is to read. But adults must be careful not to 

 hurry him here. He must have time to ace it 

 all. Beads may be used instead of tone* 

 The land pan exercise is excellent work at 

 home, the mother or father and older membera 

 family playing the "game" with the 

 child. Children up through the third and 

 fourth grade will l> hrlped greatly by it and 

 see and understand the number system, and 

 the older membera of the family will play the 

 game with Best. 



At first he reads a number M one ten and 

 two ten and seven, ten and three; later 

 twelve, seventeen, thirteen,- and no on. He will 

 see and hear the three and t< M m thirteen, 

 even and ten in seventeen, two ten* in the 

 word twenty, three tent in the word thirty, up 

 through the nineties (*ee NOTATION). From 



