Stamp Game

The Stamp Game is a fixture in the Primary Classroom, a much-coveted material that reinforces knowledge in the mathematical operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The Stamp Game engages both the hand and the mind with its moveable wooden squares to represent different units of measurement (green units, blue for tens, red for hundreds, and green for thousands). Part of this lesson is to move a child from a concrete method of thinking to a more abstract one (and follows the more concrete lesson of golden beads). Stamp Game itself has evolved since Dr. Maria Montessori originally developed it. Dr. Montessori created the game using actual postage stamps (as collecting postage stamps was popular in that time), then gradually phased out to mosaic tiles, and finally, the wooden tiles that you see today.The first column is where the child writes the units; the second column tens; the third column hundreds, the fourth column thousands. After the directress writes a number, she will then read the number as, for example, if the number is 3289, 9 units, 8 tens, 2 hundreds, and 3 thousands. The directress will then read the number 3289. So much can be learned with stamp game, including abstract thinking, mathematical operations, coordination (those tiles are tiny, and look at the pencil grip!), order, and sequence, to name a few. Besides, it is fun, evidenced by the children's desire to do the work over and over again.