GAM Addition Snake Game

The set has a nine-compartment wooden box holding ten sets of coloured bead stairs numbered one to nine, and a two-compartment box with one set of black-and-white bead stairs and twenty golden bars of ten. Both boxes sit neatly in a beechwood tray.

The child lays coloured bead stairs end to end to form a long snake, then counts along it and swaps each run of ten beads for a golden ten bar, using the black-and-white stairs for any remainder. This turns adding unit numbers into a concrete counting and exchanging activity.

It introduces the addition combinations of the unit numbers, the number bonds up to ten and beyond that support mental arithmetic. By repeatedly making tens and counting on, the child memorises these combinations through movement and colour rather than by rote alone.

The coloured bead stairs are joined in a wandering line that looks like a snake. As the child works along it, exchanging groups of ten for golden bars, the colourful snake gradually turns into a shorter row of tens, making the process of addition visible from start to finish.

Each golden bar stands for a completed group of ten beads. When counting along the snake reaches ten, the child replaces that run with one golden bar, reinforcing the base-ten idea that ten units make a new unit of ten and keeping the growing sum easy to read.

Yes. The game suits a child ready to move from counting single beads toward adding and making tens. The colour-coded stairs and hands-on exchanging give concrete support, so the child builds fluency with number bonds before working with written sums.

The two wooden boxes fit inside the beechwood tray, keeping the bead stairs and golden bars together between lessons and easy to carry to a table. Keep the wood dry and out of direct sun, and return the beads to their compartments so the sets stay complete.