Montessori math organization using a tacklebox

 

For the past few weeks, I have been working hard on organizing our supplies and classroom.  After seeing this post on Making Montessori Ours, I knew that I wanted to change our old sound bins cabinet so that it would hold our math materials.

I use this hardware cabinet from Lowes, but I’d actually think this one would be much better, since it has 4 rows across the bottom – perfect for holding the operations work horizontally. 

 

 

 

To divide the drawers into compartments, I cut chipboard so that it fit into the boxes perfectly; however, you may prefer to purchase the small and large dividers that go with this set.  To the right, you can see where I’ve added additional pieces of chipboard, taped into position, to divide the static and dynamic operations.  I also added a piece of construction paper behind each section, as a visual divider for the different sections.

 

So what’s inside?

Row 1:  nothing mathematical… in fact, it’s storage until I purchase a new cabinet to store our language materials in!  However, it will eventually hold dice, positive and negative snake game, math related card games, and other math manipulatives.

Row 2: 

• shape sticks (popsicle sticks that create the different 2D shapes, similar to these, but ours go up to a decagon and the sticks are color coded)
• geometric shape sorting cards
• geometric solid sorting cards
• blank (it is labeled constructive triangle command cards, but they were too large for the slot and have been moved to the bottom right box)
• detective adjective command cards
• strips for addition and subtraction strip board

Row 3: 

• Stamp game (I have a set that I’ve made, but you can print a set and instructions on how to use it here)
  • box 1:  number cards
  • box 2:  plastic tokens
  • box 3:  wooden skittles
• measuring cup command cards
  • box 4:  amounts to 1 cup
  • box 5: amounts to 4 cups**
• measuring spoon command cards**

Row 4: 

• addition equation strips
• multiplication equation strips
• subtraction equation strips
• division equation strips
• fraction command cards (as seen in this post)
• rulers**

Row 5:

• addition finger chart cards  (finger charts are stored separately – that’s a future post!)
• multiplication finger chart cards
• subtraction finger chart cards
• division finger chart cards
• small number cards (can be found here, but I made my own)
• number command cards (I made mine, but you can use these place value cards)

Row 6: 

• addition command cards
• multiplication command cards
• subtraction command cards

Row 7: 

• addition booklet (sequential and random order)
• multiplication booklet (sequential and random order)
• subtraction booklet (sequential and random order)

Row 8: 

• division command cards
• division booklet (sequential and random order)
• blue constructive triangle cards from here and here

Note:  Items marked ** are files that I created that will be coming out in future posts.  As these are posted, I will update this post with the corresponding links.

 

Like our labels?  I added an image beside the text, so Aikman could easily see what was included in each box, without necessarily having to read the words.  The images came off of the MPS website.   Jennifer at MPS is allowing me to share my printable for the labels with her images included.  You can download the math cabinet labels here.

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I’m linking up to Montessori Monday and Math Monday.

Disclosure:  Hardware cabinets and accessories above are linked to my Amazon affiliate code.  The very small amount of money that I make on Amazon is used to support our curriculum needs for each school year.  All other links are to the Montessori Print Shop store, to which I am not affiliated.