Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Cuisenaire Rods

Thanks all for the suggestions. I think I'll give the rods a miss. She already has regular wooden building block, duplo and pattern blocks. I think each of those lend themselves better to exploring/ playing/ discovering/ natural learning than the rods. Much of what I've seen about the cusinaire rods is about specific instruction and the comments here have confirmed that.

I'm interested in the comments that many of you said about not needing concrete representation of mathematical concepts and 'just knowing' them. I recently read a paper which found that for children who do understand abstract concepts, that physically representing them with rods etc can actually be limiting. I wish wish wish I had written it down - I have no idea where I read it now and I can't find it again.

Years of use by my two out of pattern blocks. Love them.

Not the exactly same thing but quite related ... when DS5.2 went into public preschool for the first time shortly after turning 4 he went in being able to do basic addition to 20 (though not 100% correct yet) and basic subtraction within 10 and no more than two or three weeks into school he started coming home telling me he doesn't know any of it because he hasn't learned it yet. They were using counters to learn basic counting and he would tell me he can't count in his head ... he has to use counters or other objects to count. Long story short, he seriously regressed in math while in preschool. His love for math came back once preschool was over. Now he's in K where they are learning counting objects to 10 and finding one and two more or and one and two fewer objects. I made it a BIG thing for him to know that what he's doing at school is one thing and what he's doing at home because he's just curious is another thing and it's perfectly ok to know more than what the school is asking of him. So two weeks ago he was playing with double digit numbers, last week he started to ask me about hundreds and yesterday he was all about thousands! lol He can't make calculations with those big numbers but he absolutely gets the point. So I 100% believe that the ways that might work for most kids can be very limiting for kids like ours who just "get" things.

Oh, and a week ago I got one of those "base ten" interlocking sets (got it used on eBay with couple other fun things). I figured we'd have long ways before we'd ever need it. He found the box yesterday when hubby was watching him, asked what it was ... I showed him how 10 x 10 was 100 and he had 10 of these, told him that was a THOUSAND ... he said "Cool! I didn't know that! Now I know!" and since then he's been using it to build his "creations". I don't think we'll ever use them for math again. So manipulatives might work but they are just a one time thing in many cases so why waste money on them

It took ds6 nearly a year to get back to where he was at 4 after starting school at 5. he could count on and back or visualise things but they taught him to count from one and use his fingers.

If you find that paper let me know, it's exactly what I have been trying to explain to school about my DD!

Friends gifted us two sets and I was sure DD would use them for various purposes but no, she used them for 2 days to make different shapes out of the smaller pieces; she especially got a kick out of finding various ways to build hexagon but after that, she hasn't touched them. We also bought her overpriced Tegu wooden magnetic blocks but she hasn't really taken to them yet. We have a children's museum near us where she can touch everything so I can get some clues to where her current interests are but then she could get over them in a matter of weeks if not days. I wish there were ways to rent these manipulatives or that there'd be a "library" for math materials.

I find the best math (and science) activities for her right now is cooking and baking but I feel a bit guilty that I'm training her to be a homemaker which is silly since if I had a boy, I'd want him to be self-sufficient around the house too.

It's interesting that many of DC on this board are better off without manipulatives. I learned math without ever using them but DD loved those colorful Montessori beads so much that she carried them everywhere. She also likes girly duplo blocks as well as fairy tale inspired Haba castle blocks so you know, it could just be that she likes colorful sparkly things. I wish I knew what goes on in that head of hers.

I wonder whether the discussion about manipulatives is clouded by our children using as manipulatives things that we don't think of that way? I don't remember DS using manipulatives anyone intended as such, much, but I do remember the phase when for supper he'd ask for "one sausage, two potatoes, three tomatoes,...seven salads" and then do a running commentary through the meal...I think that was probably the manipulatives phase for him!

I am not familiar with the rods, but DS loved and seemed to benefit greatly from the manipulative used at the Montessori school he attended from ages 2 to 5. It is our belief that they helped accelerate his math development.

Could be! I remember when DS5.2 was younger and EVERYTHING he wanted was spelled out in exact numbers. It drove me crazy but I was happy he could count. Though I wasn't happy about having to do all the counting myself so he'd get the right number of hot dog pieces, chips, crackers, etc.