Montessori Monday: Red and Blue Rods: Part 1

The red and blue rods help the child with counting. It's cool because you can "see" and "feel" the numbers as they increase.

You start this "stairway" from the bottom. Holding to the red rod on your hand on on the mat, touch the red rod with a finger from your other hand and say,"One" and very carefully place the rod next to whatever you're using to keep everything straight. (As you can see, I'm using the lid of the box these rods came from.)Then proceed to count the rods while touching each individual red and blue segment and say,"One, two." Continue the same way until you reach ten.

It's very important to exaggerate while you're modeling. Pretend to be fascinated while you put the rods in order. Stoop down low with your nose virtually touching the mat and pretend to concentrate putting it in place. It's a great visual aid for children to learn to work carefully. Don't say anything, just show them in silence, speaking only when counting and saying the number.


After the child is familiar with the previous exercise, you can try building it vertically. Start from the top. It's a kid-friendly Montessori concept to always start either from the left to right or top to bottom.


Later, you can introduce the numerals. I used an index cards and cut these to size. They do fall easily. I wonder if tile might work better. Edit: My friend says that if I just have the card lean from the top, it should stay up.

You can later teach the cardinal numbers the same way. I have yet to introduce this to Koko, but I suppose I should start soon.



Now, let's get to the counting which you can introduce early on. Mix up either the numbers or the rods. The above is an example of mixed up rods. Starting with "1" ask your child to find the corresponding rod(s).

Here's the numbers mixed up. Starting with the bottom red rod, you can ask, "Where's 1?"


A more challenging exercise is mixing both the rods and numbers. Have your child pick up any random number or rod and find its match. Eventually, your child will able to size up a rod and automatically know what number it is. Cool, huh?

Now for the ordinal numbers. Some children are not ready for this until age 5. You only need to use one rod for the ordinal numbers. Take the ten rod (or whatever rod you choose depending on how many ordinal numbers you plan to introduce) and put the arrow first on top of the first segment. Place the index card on the left. If you wanted to introduce "second" you would put the arrow first on the second segment and then put the second card on the left.

And if you went on until you reached "tenth" you would again put the arrow on the tenth segment and place the card on the left.

After the child has mastered ordinal numbers, you can introduce abbreviations the same way. Here's "1oth."


And of course, a fun extension would be this game. Take all your ordinal numbers and flip them. Have the child pick one random number and then place the arrow in the correct place as well as the number card on the left.

Writing this up has been very educational for me, though it might be information overboard so some. I had my Montessori teacher friend look at my post and needless to say, I made many errors. I think it's a good idea to have a handbook of some type. And if you, my friendly reader, notice any errors of any type, please give me a shout. Also, kindly note, that I will post my draft-in-progress prior to Monday just so it's easy for me to make corrections, (versus e-mailing my post to my friend and then posting it again) but my true post won't be ready until Monday or soon after.

Product Info: My friend purchased these rods for Koko from Montessori Outlet. It came with two sets of rods, but my friend told me to save one set for later so that Cheeky could have a nice set to work with when she's ready. But you do need both sets to do addition. I'll post about that and many other fun extensions you can do with these nifty rods next week!

Oh, don't forget to check out Shannon's Sharings today. She has a great link to share for those who might want to purchase Montessori equipment.