My 4-year-old really enjoys cuisenaire rods. I don't think we would enjoy them as much, though, if a friend hadn't sent us a book called "Idea Book for Cuisenaire Rods PK-2." I had been thinking of them in a really limited way, just as replacements for numbers in math problems, until we got the book.
Some things we enjoy:
- making symmetrical patterns. Draw a line of symmetry down a sheet of paper. One person is the leader and the other the copier (or take turns) - the leader puts rods on one side of the line of symmetry and the copier makes a mirror image on the other side.
- complete the pattern. Make a pattern of rods and challenge the other person to figure out what comes next.
- rod detectives. Make a rod rectangle, where two rod staircases (every rod in order) match up so that you show all the addend pairs that make 10. One person closes their eyes. The other person takes some rods away, and the guesser has to figure out which rods are missing.
- find all the rods that... are smaller than the green rod, bigger than the red rod, fall in between white and yellow, etc.
- finish the line. Put two rods next to each other and try to figure out what could be added to the shorter rod to make it the same length as the longer rod.
- find all the rod combinations that are the same length as, say, the yellow rod, and stack them up together.
Some things we enjoy:
- making symmetrical patterns. Draw a line of symmetry down a sheet of paper. One person is the leader and the other the copier (or take turns) - the leader puts rods on one side of the line of symmetry and the copier makes a mirror image on the other side.
- complete the pattern. Make a pattern of rods and challenge the other person to figure out what comes next.
- rod detectives. Make a rod rectangle, where two rod staircases (every rod in order) match up so that you show all the addend pairs that make 10. One person closes their eyes. The other person takes some rods away, and the guesser has to figure out which rods are missing.
- find all the rods that... are smaller than the green rod, bigger than the red rod, fall in between white and yellow, etc.
- finish the line. Put two rods next to each other and try to figure out what could be added to the shorter rod to make it the same length as the longer rod.
- find all the rod combinations that are the same length as, say, the yellow rod, and stack them up together.
