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.
This free math video shows a good activity to help establish the relationship of the white rod to every other rod in the set. Probably not needed more than once for older kids or adults, but good for the preschool age group!
This free math video gives ideas for introducing Cuisenaire Rods. These ideas will work for older children, too, not only preschoolers. These should be done after much time spent in unstructured play with the rods.
The rod numbers are based on length and prepare the child to learn about addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and fractions/decimals/percents (as well as negatives and algebra with a few cosmetic changes to the rods).
