We haven’t used the teen & ten boards yet.  The kids have gotten down the decimal system to a certain extent of memorization & we’ve done simple addition with check board beads & problems relating just recently practical math problems all symbolic.  Just today maggie asked me what a symbol was in math, the greater than sign.  She picked it up while we were setting out beads.  I immediately grabbed a ten bar and then a four and asked her which was more.  I used the old alligator comparison I remembered as a kid.  She laughed.  It stuck.  She understood the sign.  I’ll present it again this week.  Above Maggie sits with the ten board.

Lily works on the teen board. She learned the patterns surprisingly fast.