Friday, April 03, 2015

Preschool & Kindergarten Mathematics: Cuisenaire Rods

We allow lots of
free play with the cuisenaire rods.

Cuisenaire Rods Small Group Wood

We want the kids
 to be very comfortable
with them.

We discuss the different sizes
and all of the different things that can be done with them.
 
We build lots of things.

My kids love to build farms out of them. Each color is an important part of the farm. Some are animals and others are the fence around the barn.

What looks like
a pile of spilled blocks
is often

a very thoughtful plan.

This week I felt that it was important for us to get to know the value of each color of rod in the cuisenaire set. I refer to it as a cube or unit. Cube seems the most appropriate term, because of its shape. Giving it a different name also helps to set it apart from the other rods. Since it is the smallest unit and what all the other rods are measured by, I want to give it a separate title.

We began by building stairs. We laid them on top of one another and standing up on their sides. Then we used a cube to determine the difference in the steps of our stairs. Each step up was one unit/cube.



We measured each rod with cubes to determine how many units were in each rod.


 And even how many go around a rod.




On graph paper, we made the unit and each rod matching the number of boxes to the number of cubes in the rod. We colored the rods on our graph paper the same color as the actual rods.




I made large felt rods and a large cube in corresponding colors, so that we could play with our rods in different ways.

We also slide in some hints of addition...

Wishing you homeschool blessings,


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