These beautiful bead chains are hung from a wooden frame that holds squares and the cubes of one to ten with the corresponding chains and the containers with the respective coloured arrows. The same colour scheme is continued with these materials as in previous math activities, whereby one is represented in red, two is green, three is pink, four is yellow, five is turquoise, six is violet, seven is white, eight is brown, nine is blue, and ten is gold.
The child lays out a chain on the mat. Then they begin to count the beads on the chain. The appropriate numbered arrows are placed under each bead. This process is continued until all the arrows have been placed under the beads. The chains are used for skip counting (for example counting by fives) and for learning the squares and cubes of the numbers one to ten.
Children are interested in this material because of the beauty of the coloured beads and arrows and seeing the different length of the chains. This activity is very useful because the child learns how to skip count as well as how to count in bases other than ten, which indirectly prepares them for multiplication.
