Dot Exercise

Dot Exercise carries the addition of large numbers from the beads onto paper. The child writes down the numbers to be added, marks them out dot by dot in the columns for units, tens, hundreds and thousands, and ten dots in one column become a single dot in the next, so carrying is no longer a rule to remember but a step the child performs and sees. Nothing has to be held in the head: if a total comes out wrong, every dot is still on the sheet and can be counted again until the mistake shows itself. It follows the golden bead work and suits the older children in a 3 to 6 group.