Bringing Back Cuisenaire Rods     

From what I’ve been told, Cuisenaire Rods were popular in classrooms in the 1960’s and 1970’s, though they were never present in my classrooms. When I first learned about Cuisenaire Rods and began inquiring as to whether there were any in my district, I encountered teachers who had never heard of them and teachers who said, “I used to have a ton of them!” That led me to suspect that when older teachers retired and passed their classrooms on to new teachers, the Cuisenaire Rods were tucked on a shelf in the back of a closet. When discovered, they were discarded because no one knew what to do with them. I’ve been trying to change that.

     I’ve encouraged schools to purchase the rods, provided professional development and included them in the math methods course I teach. Here, I will share how I introduce Cuisenaire Rods. I’ve done this as young as kindergarten, but it’s a good way to introduce the rods at any grade.

Getting Started   

     The first thing I like to have students do is sort the rods. Sometimes rods are in bins at a  table and sometimes they are in individual bags. Either way works for this activity. I always allow students to explore the rods before beginning the sorting activity. After about five minutes, I ask them to sort the rods by color. They will end up with ten different-colored piles. Next, I ask them to mix the rods up and sort by size. They soon discover that they end up with the same ten different-colored piles! We discuss what this means-that all of the orange rods are the same size and all of the yellow rods are the same size.

     Each time we use the rods, students are given a few minutes to explore. At the end of this time, students are instructed to build their staircase. Because students will build a staircase at the beginning of each lesson until they know the values of each color, I follow the sorting activity by doing so.

     Once they each have a staircase, we wrap up by comparing rods, using colors. Number comparisons will come later. I model, for example, “The brown rod is bigger (or more) than the yellow rod” and “The red rod is smaller (or less) than the black rod.” Next, I show two rods and ask a student to “read” the rods. This is repeated as time allows.

Here’s a freebie you can use in your math centers to familiarize students with the rods and their colors.

Check back for more things to do with Cuisenaire Rods!