Using Cuisenaire Rods with a 2.5yo who is possibly gifted? Any experience/ opinions?

I wouldn't recommend teaching a 2.5yo in any way, but if you think they might make a good toy, go ahead. All I did at that age was to respond to DS's conversation about numbers and patterns. One thing I remember him loving at about that age was a set of fridge magnets in various polygonal shapes and multiple glittery colours, fwiw.

We use a slightly more versatile toy--Math Cubes--as a substitute for Lego with DS2. He's managed to figure out number relationships by building things with the blocks. He also loves tesselation tiles for building and using in pretend play, and he's picked up how the shapes correspond to one another indirectly through his play.

Like ColinsMum, I'd say try it if you think your child will have fun exploring with it. I'm a big fan of making media available, sitting back, and seeing what my son does with it.

Watch out for choking hazards.

We had Cuisenaire rods when my eg ds was small - and he used them to build things out of

My personal philosophy at 2 is to follow your child's lead - have lots of things available for them to explore, take them lots of different places, spend lots of time just interacting with them - but don't over obsess about learning tools etc. If your child is going to be extraordinarily gifted at math, they most likely don't need a tool like the rods. Or they might enjoy it. Or they might enjoy it even if they aren't gifted at math. Whoever they are or whoever they eventually become, I would choose things like this at this stage based on what you'd like to do with your child and then be ok with however they decided to use (or not use) it Enjoy them - the early years pass by so quickly!

Best wishes,

polarbear

I think DD was around that age when she started asking for an abacus and SO and I got into a huge disagreement. Looking back, it was really silly of us to make such a big deal out of a $10 abacus that DD uses as a shaker 90% of the time. We do use it once in awhile to explain concepts in teachable moments and other than that abacus, we have no math manipulatives around the house except for lego and other building blocks.

We are thinking about giving her some mathy gifts this Christmas and I haven't finalized the shopping list but my selection criteria are that they have to have multiple and long-term purposes, durable, fun to play with, and pretty enough to sit on the shelf. So Cuisenaire Rods that come in a wooden storage tray would fit the bill.

my kids don't learn by being taught. They just "absorb" info from all the sources around them. If I tried to teach them something, their reaction would "nice try! ha ha ha!" ... As for Cuisenaire Rods, I'm pretty sure both boys would use them for building and that's about it. They somehow "understand" math without needing any visuals / manipulatives.

Videogames is a great teaching tool in this house. Vtech Vsmile system taught DS5.2 basic math operations when he was hardly 3 years old and Leapfrog Leappad Explorer / Leappad2 Explorer is a huge hit in any subject area. I wouldn't know how smart DS3.6 was if it wasn't for what I saw him doing on Leappad!

They are good playthings but do you or will you have a baby in the house because the pieces are small.

We had Cuisenaire rods because I thought they might be good for teaching (exposing, discussing if asked, but not outright instructing) relationships between numbers, kinda like the larger rods my DD's montessori preschool had, but it turns out my kids never really seemed to *not* understand those kinds of relationships and concepts. Like others have said, my kids liked building with them and making pictures out of them, so they had value like blocks or other creative toys.

You could also get pattern blocks http://www.edsco.com.au/products/product/B-015289?category=JRWJYBWJ

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.

See, I used that to teach her subtraction... Lol.
"Oh! 6 chips? I guess you'll have to eat 3!" Etc.

Now at 3.5 she's obsessed with patterns. She needs to declare her dinner pattern before she starts - "OK, fish, carrot, rice, rice, juice. That's my pattern."

She loves math in both the abstract and concrete senses

We don't use the rods (though I have to admit they seem interesting), we just use everyday things and situations - I doubt it would hurt to use them though - never know what interesting conclusions or lessons they'd learn with just some minimal guidance

We used the rods. I think I purchased them for DD when she was about 3 years old. At 2.5 she started counting coins up through 50 out of the blue and completely untaught. I introduced the rods as a dining room table toy. She took right to them. She caught on to their names right away, and it was a great way to show her how to measure things and compare. If she did not remember that the orange rod was a ten rod, she could measure them with one rods, or she could compare the orange rod to two five rods, etc.

I was actually quite surprised how intuitive it was for her. It was not to me, but I got the hang of it. She just played with them, making trains, patterns, and calling the 3 rods preschoolers, the 4 rods pre-Kers, the 5 rods kindergartners, etc.

When she started to add above ten, the rods were just amazing. She immediately manipulated them in such a way that made it easier for her to "see". For example, she could measure that an 8+7 was the same length as a 10+5, and she could break it down further as an 8+2+5. I think the rods are great for exploring and internalizing--not rote memorization.

I never really taught with them. They just stayed on the dining room table until they got cycled out for something else. She would play with them, and I might yell over to figure out 8+7.

They were great for my not very visual DD. It really helped her see things in concrete ways when she was more inclined to just memorize facts. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and fractions have been explored through these rods. It was just luck that I stumbled onto them. I am thoroughly happy that I did.

ellemenope, you just convinced me to buy the rods now, rather than later. DD still wants those beads; one of them is stuck behind the cup holder in the car and she notices it once in awhile and reminds me that I promised her to replace them. I found rods that are color coordinated with the beads. I think I'm getting more excited about these than I should be.

For DD, it was making numerical patterns with peas and carrots and making maze with spaghetti. I thought she was avoiding eating anything but mac'n cheese but maybe there was something more to it.

Haha! That was totally me with a balance and calibration weights for DS2's recent birthday. I like to think an excited parent motivates an engaged child.

I'm kicking myself that I didn't save it!

While touring preschools, I noticed my DS3 quickly gravitated to a container of Unifix cubes. I later purchased them along with a 1-10 stair, and it's amazing the number of ways he has used them - one time they were seeds that he planted, another time fruit salad, trains, etc. He also uses them to create patterns, and I recently observed him constructing math facts for 10 with the stair and happily talking to himself about "all the ways I can make 10". They are different from the Cuisenaire Rods you are considering, but you might find them of interest.

Yes, Unifix cubes got a lot more use at our house. They were used for building things, kinda like Legos, but also for making more salient concepts like arrays, area, circumference, fractions, word problems, patterns, etc. They were also used in pretend play, where they were sorted into different families or groups and "lived" in houses built by other unifix cubes. In my house they were used by all of my kids - two of whom are very mathy and one of whom definitely is not.