This Is Mortensen (More Than) Math!

Mortensen Math is the legacy of V.J. Mortensen.  He figured out that he could teach math concepts to very young children through play. He spent years developing the tools to teach these concepts. The one thing lacking was documentation on the use of these tools.

When i got involved back in 1989 they had a curriculum starter kit but no instruction on how to use it. The kit came with a few videos that lasted about 5 hours. One of those videos just went over the names of the materials. This is a "top tray" it is used not only to store blocks but to control error when building addends and for practicing multiplication facts. 

The top tray is half of the combo kit.  These blocks took years to develop. Jerry Mortensen was a clinician. He developed this method while teaching in Montessori schools in Idaho State. 

i spent quite a bit of time with Jerry, "forcing" him to teach me math using the method he gave his name. i have taken it and have done my best to present this method to you via video and this website. This is concept based teaching. Once you understand and are conversant with the five basic concepts, math and teaching math becomes a piece of cake. But you can only eat so much chocolate cake at a time no matter how much you love chocolate.  It contains a fraction of the knowledge that is in my head which is a fraction of the knowledge that died the day Jerry did.  His lessons on Chemistry for example using these blocks are gone forever. But i have managed to preserve and in some cases expound on what Jerry taught me. 

Jerry had a hell of a time writing things down. He didn't write out lesson plans often and the ones he did write are lost to moves and time. The Series A manuals were written by several of his "followers" for lack of a better term, who tried to put some of his priceless lessons down on paper for other teachers and trainers. If you have seen the Teacher's Manuals, they are literally "transcriptions" of lessons Jerry did with students. Sometimes verbatim. 

Mortensen Math

This video expounds on the 90 sec video on the home page. 

That was the first time i ever got paid stupid money as a "talent fee" on that promotional video. Math for fun and profit. That girl in the video was taught by her mom and dad...this system works! They didn't have half the resources i give you on this website. No excuses. You now have hours of video training, examples, sample lessons, PDFs with boys and girls from 3 to 23 of all skill levels and "IQs". Special needs example pages also available. Real sessions. Real students. Years worth of content proving the effectiveness of this method. 

One place CRHOM differs from the official Mortensen material is Subtraction. Adding the addend was "too much" for public school curriculums and he was trying to get his Mortensen Math books accepted so he "caved" on this algorithm.  CRHOM brought it back the way Jerry taught it to me which is the way Mario Montessori taught it to him.  i also show you how to use Algebra from day one to introduce math concepts. Algebra is just generic math.  Most younglings will tell you algebra is easier than base ten mathematics if they have been taught properly using this method. 

Dig around, there is a ton of FREE info, lessons and video on the site now. You have a kit and want to know how to use it? You've come to the right place.

50% of this method is based on Montessori...at leaste. Another 48% came from Jerry Mortensen taking the ball and running with it so to speak. The last 2% (being generous) is from CRHOM. Like so many of my student trainees, i have discovered a lot of math methodology and teaching techniques that most likely ALREADY existed, and incorporated it into the house of math.  You will not find anyone showing you how to incorporate algebra into play with toddlers anywhere.  And most other systems including the one that claims you can see it, don't use blocks for "upper" level algebra. 

i've also taken several of Jerry's favorite stories for teaching math. Any Master Trainer knows the boy scout story, the cinnamon roll story, the doughnut factory story, Sammy and his ten ton truck among many others. Each designed to purvey math concepts to little younglings.  

i may have discovered them for myself but i certainly didn't "invent" them. Like Columbus discovering the New World...the Indians were already there. But some of these effective techniques had fallen by the wayside and i revived them. Any veteran teacher will tell you if a method is effective they phase it out of the public school curriculum. They know how to teach reading and cursive writing, they just don't anymore. And as my sons who have both finished the obligatory 12 year grind have noted when it comes to math they "teach it the stupidest, hardest way possible". "They ignore the easy algorithms in favor of needlessly complex ones".   

Directed Discovery.

While i spent time in Idaho, i must say Jerry was Masterful at directed discovery: i had questions he wouldn't always answer them, but tell me to go fool around with the blocks and come back when i could tell him the answer. Other times we'd draw in the dirt...or go to the VJ Mortensen Company World Head Quarters (a small warehouse in a small industrial park in CDA, Idaho which has been sold long since) and play with blocks with me. Usually answers came very quickly...because you can SEE it.

i also like to joke that i have forgotten more math than most people know: that's not too far from true. i've gone down some strange and fantastic roads chasing my 1st Mistress. My 1st Mistress is the Mathematics...ask anyone, particularly my "exes"...that's so puny i can't stand it. i crack myself up. But i digress again.

In addition to Mortensen Math, i have taken a couple other methods that were symbol based and applied them to the blocks so you can see WHY the "tricks" work. i am sure i am not the first person to do this, but i am the only person i know who wrote them down and made a website using tem. Now, i am in the process of making one cohesive methodology. i have a 12 page PDF covering the 5 basic concepts, the Montessori method and their application for teaching mathematics to the very young child, but it is behind a paywall. There is a two page version available for download.

The guy that started "Math-U-See" never got fully trained by Jerry and applied what he knew of the Mortensen Math system to the standard 12 step indoctrination program known as the "US public school" math curriculum making it Mortensen Less than Math, MUS does NOT incorporate algebra and algebraic thinking into their preschool and primary curriculum, waiting instead until the "upper levels" and even then you do NOT see the pictures so you don't ever see how to use the blocks for factoring polynomials or understanding the quadratic equation.  (Mod IV password required.)

Jerry had a wealth of knowledge but he failed to write it all down. It was worse than pulling teeth trying to get him to sit down and write. Much of the training i got was like learning an oral tradition. i can't find it anyplace else written down, i have come to the conclusion that some of it really was original thought out of the mind of Jerry Mortensen. Particularly the parts relating to the calculus, and some of the parts that show percentages...

Frankly, some of it is only written down in notes i took during seminars where Jerry Mortensen was presenting, something that became rarer and rarer over the years, or during times when he would come and do a little segment at one of our "International Teacher Trainings" (teachers would comes across the boarder from Canada) where i was presenting most of it and he would come and "spice it up". He would always pull something new out of his butt mostly for my benefit...and to show me who was boss (lol) just when i thought i pretty much knew the whole methodology regarding that particular topic. 

Jerry distilled the mathematics down to what we like to call The Five Basic Concepts.

Crewton Ramone's No Mystery Theatre

Takes the mystery out of math and this method.  Click here.

i have  have video on this site presenting not only the five basic concepts, but many other lessons which always come back to one or more of the five concepts. Simplify, simplify...or slim-piffy as one of my favorite math students would say.

The image at left is classic Mortensen Math, showing expanded notation. and a simple problem any 5 year old can build, count and understand. 13 x 12 is one big red one, five blue ones and six green ones. As usual the second part of this where you "split and shift" is left out.

We call that number 156, one hundred fifty six. All we do is count.

If you use your imagination and a three period lesson, now we can rename the blocks. Instead of the big red one being "one hundred" we'll call it x² (x-squared), the blue ones are now x's instead of tens but the units are still units. Little kids love algebra for a host of reasons and often ask for it by name during tutoring sessions.

Any little kid can take x² + 5x + 6, factor it by counting the sides or multiply it by building it across (x + 3) and up (x + 2) like you see here. When I work with little kids they see blocks and drawings first and then later we add the symbols. By then the symbols make sense. Jerry Mortensen always made it clear that the concepts needed to be presented at the child's level, using language they could easily understand. If the child didn't have the vocabulary you'd make sure and develop the vocabulary, and make sure they could relate the symbols to the blocks and drawings.

Later when we evaluate the expressions for various values of x, little kids just get out the blocks and count. i used to get little boys or girls to stay after their sessions were over and show the teen-agers how easy it was to factor quadratics. You would be amazed at how much motivation and attitude adjustment this would create...especially if was a 9 year old girl and a 16 year foot ball player.

Talk about leveling the playing field! OMG! i crack myself up.

Rapidly, a crude drawing like this has lots of meaning, and we can describe it with symbols. If we are in base ten that's 11 x 11 = 121 = 11². If algebra (base x) thats (x + 1)² = x² + 2x + 1. If algebra (variable) (x + y)² = x² + 2xy + y². If percentages 10% of 10 = 1  If decimals (1.1)² = 1.21,  (110)² = 12,100...

We can see that it is a square number and we can see from the pattern that we are doing multiplication. For new comers this will take a bit of time to get used to.

Just keep in mind like any language you won't learn it all at once and the more you expose yourself to it the easier it becomes to understand. Some people "know math" and this gets them terribly excited because now they can SEE it.

Others take a bit if time to make sense of it because they "know math" and as one engineer said on the first day of a three day seminar, "blocks ain't math." But by the time it was all over he was quite enthused because he understood how he could teach his daughter math and maybe even make it fun. He had already discovered that turning up the volume didn't help and often resulted in tears.

Jerry Mortensen always made sure everybody got on the same page. From the most advanced to the beginner...and he always did it by starting in the concrete & using three period lessons, because as he would say, "it's no use if you don't know the names of the blocks or what the symbols mean".  He also enjoyed being entertaining: putting on a dog and pony show to teach math...and by being patient. Something i am still developing..."i have students not patients..."

Here is a pdf called "Mortensen Instead" by Judith Townsend on Why She Replaced Montessori Math Material [in her school]. You may find it interesting. Note that in the time since this was written they have returned to traditional Montessori materials.

Judith Townsend is an AMS certified elementary teacher and has trained extensively in the use of the Mortensen math manipulatives and methodology. She lectures and provides seminars for teachers and parents in the US and Canada. She is an elementary teacher at the Princeton Montessori School and a teacher trainer at PCTE in Princeton, NJ. 

Montessori purists take issue with the Mortensen Method because Jerry paired down the manipulatives to the combo kit and top tray for most instruction. All the materials are nice but you don't need them. 

The other thing i must mention is there are many people "out there" who mean well but don't really know how to use base ten blocks. Some Montessorians don't know the difference between base ten blocks from Mortensen or MUS. 

Some show you incorrect algorithms.

Everything about this is "wrong"...i show you how to do it the easy way which is the right way...that is division not multiplication...across and up for multiplication. Count the big ones first. No need for superfluous side bars which in some child's minds adds 25 to the problem...or rules they don't need like only count the ones in the contiguous rectangle...

These fools can over-complicate one red one, five blue ones, six orange ones...156. 12 x 13...except they have (10 + 2) x (3 + 10). i am not singling out this page you will see the misunderstanding of the pattern on page after page. 

They show you division while explaining multiplication. Learn how to do it right. 

The Mortensen Method
absolutely works!

i have used all manner of manipulatives besides Montessori. The Mortensen Blocks are superior teaching tools created by a clinician who developed them in the classroom not in some Ivey League Ivory Tower or DOE think tank. BTW the reason you haven't heard more about Mortensen Math is the UNITED STATES Department of Education. They have known about this since the 1980's. Jerry was on 20/20 (a TV show) and things exploded. 

i have taught in Montessori classrooms, public school classrooms, private school classrooms, Mormon preschools, Catholic Preschools, Special Education classrooms full of extremely "challenged" students including one student who was a quadriplegic who required a translator. i had him doing algebra to the stark and stunned amazement of his aides ad teachers. His mind was fine, his body didn't work due to a "medical malfunction" involving inoculation and a severe and permanent allergic reaction at birth.  The point is i honed my craft in person, with students, proving to myself that the Mortensen Method absolutely works.

If you can count to nine, identify a rectangle and tell whether two things are same or different or not, i can teach you math.

Jerry said the same. i am just repeating it. 

i have "demoed" this method in Montessori classrooms in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama... i have opened and worked in Mortensen  "math centers" in Nebraska, Colorado, North Carolina, and Utah. i have taught math and played math, ad have done seminars in 49 states (everywhere except Alaska) and in Canada. Snuck some math in Fiji too. 

Most importantly i have used the method on my sons. It works. 

i can tell you the success rate with students of all types and ages is phenomenal. i maintain it wasn't me it was the Mortensen Method. A method that can be taught and learned. MANY others will attest to the same.  

Ten years of posts & experience available on my blog. Click the red arrow below. 

Here are a few FREE PDFs you:

Some old articles about Mortensen Math.

Scope and Sequence of the Books.

Judy Townsend on "why" Mortensen Math

Progress Charts For Mortensen Math Books

Skip Count Underlays

Practice Polynomials For Addends and Multiplication

Five Basic Concepts.

Principles

Go from this Mortensen Math Page back HOME

One Hour Overview
Getting Started 

Four year old Math Enrichment
Addends Past Ten
Higher Powers for Remedial Math

Bonus Lesson:

"Nice to meet you, where's your father?" ~First thing Jerry said to me upon our first meeting.

"Math is not a spectator sport." ~Jerry Mortensen

"Teachers are not there to educate your children. Teachers are there to assist you in the education of your children." ~Jerry Mortensen

"No math concept is beyond the grasp of a child, if it is presented at the child's level." ~Jerry Mortensen

"Mortensen Math is like a big super rich triple chocolate cake: the first piece is delicious, the next piece is good, pretty soon you don't want a third piece...don't try to cover too much in your seminars. Next time they come back they'll be ready for another helping. Know when to quit." ~Jerry Mortensen.