Now I need some lessons/activities to do with them. Does anyone know of free lessons to do with cuisinarie rods for Preschool-Early grade school? Its ALMOST a full set. I figured for free, that's not bad, LOL. I had just started looking into cuisinarie rods. I don't really think I need them for another year or two, but I wasn't about to pass them up, since they were free.

I also got some some counting Bears with absolutely no instructions. They are by Learning Resources. Its called Three Bear Family Counters. Its also not complete. There are supposed to be 80 bears but there are only 61. But I figured I could do something with them (and if I can't, I can see if someone else wants them).

TIA

For both items, sorting for preschool/early grades is good. See if they can find different ways to sort.

With the cuisenairre rods you can take a longer rod, then have the child figure out different ways to use 2 rods to make the same length. Each color is x cm long... so if you had a 10 cm long rod, they would have LOTS of ways to make more 'trains' the same length as the 10cm rod.

You can use the rods to measure. Example, see if they can measure a shoe just using one color of rod. Then use another color. Then compare the two numbers. See if they can figure out why you would use more of some colors than of others.

My kids are always using ours to build little towers and other sttructures.

Last week I had printed the numbers 1 - 10 on 3x5 cards. I had Adam count out each particular number of small cubes (the cm3 ones) and put them in rows under the written number. You could also do this with the bears.

Patterning. Make up a pattern using either the bears or the rods. Start simple, then get progressively harder. I just started laying out blue, red, blue, red, blue, etc.... before long, Adam and Lauren were both getting the next color without me even asking them. Then move on a little more difficult, maybe 3 colors.

It's fun to watch their brains move... because they have different ideas than we do sometimes. I love starting a project with them and then watching how they resolve it. Even if it's 'wrong' - it's neat to see what thoughts go into them figuring it out. I love sitting back and just watching the gears turn.

OOO...another idea. I did this back in my teaching math graduate class (wayyyy back when) and last week I re-read my project papers and was reminded of this. It's neat to see... I count out 23 blocks. Put them on the table. Ask student to estimate. Then have them count. Then add one more. Ask how many... add another one, again, ask how many. Do this to see if they get the concept of adding on. Just listen and go with their answer - wether right or wrong. Then take one away. (my nephew didn't get this at first, but I kept going in my project and he caught on to counting backwards) Keep taking one away at a time. The key is to wait and be patient for an answer. Don't accept an "I don't know" but accept any answer that is a reasonable try. It's neat to see them figure out adding and subtracting - even if the numbers aren't perfect yet... the idea is planted and it will get better each time. (I got an A on that project... he said I had a lot of insight - lol! oh, I doubt he ever thought I would be teaching my own children at home! snicker)

HTH!

Thanks Heather!!!!

for the cuisenaire rods, at the preschool level just playing with them is a great learning activity. They'll learn without you instructing them that white + red = light green, etc. I'd just let them play with them independently for several weeks to familiarize themselves with the rods.
On the bears, I don't have any ideas, but I think they sound really cool!

Here is a post I had written to another amitymama about cuisenaire and begenning activities.... :happy:
..........................
Intro activities my toddler and preschooler enjoy

sorting colors

pattern trains...long trains of rods in AB / ABC etc patterns. After they build a long train we push the back rod to move the whole train forward and make train sounds until the train falls apart lol.

building pyramids...the kids and I take turns laying them horizontally on the table and building up...if that makes sense. Like a pyramid is laying down on the table so there is a top color, middle colors and bottom color... Then the other person has to try to copy the color pyramid. It instills that whole concept of 'yellow is on top of green and green is under brown' type of talking.

Trying to copy more complicated designs like houses and flowers that we take turns building.

Staircase...one rod of each of the 10 colors arranged in ascending order. Name the rods from smallest to largest...
then add one white rod on top of the white and notice that it then becomes even with the second rod...add one white on top of the second rod and see that it then becomes equal to the third rod...so each rod is +1 bigger than the one before it

Playing with how many white rods are the same length as 1 brown rod....red rod, etc.....

Using the slide rule see what number corresponds to each color unit. Then add colors together...like 3 whites in the slide rule equal the number 3, etc...

Less than, greater than
find a rod that is less than purple...find a rod that is greater than yellow....

the books I have that you may want to look for if you're little guys continue to enjoy the rods...

From here to there with Cuisenaire Rods: Area Perimeter and Volume
Hidden Rods/hidden Numbers....brain teasers
One Digit Addition and Subtraction
Using the C rods (grades 1-8)
Everything's coming up fractions with C rods
Idea book for C rods at the primary level

Enoy!!!:thumbsup: