Building Number Sense

This free math video shows an excellent activity to do with children who are first being introduced to Cuisenaire Rods – even older kids! It is so simple but develops intuitive understanding of so many things – addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts; the commutative property of addition and multiplication, division with remainders, the associative property of addition – all this without needing to mention any of those terms! Once the terms are presented, children will actually understand them instead of letting them go in one ear and out the other.

It’s fun to play this math game with two or more children. They can compete to see who can come up with the most individual combinations in a specified amount of time.