For the Love of the Rods

I’m thinking I need to create a bumper sticker for my car.  Something along the lines of this:

I really just want to share my love of these colorful learning sticks to anybody and everybody that will listen.  Seriously- if cuisenaire rods were performing live for a world tour I would gladly toss my bra onstage while shrieking in delight-

hysterical happy-to-the-point-of-tears delight.

I will admit the first time I opened up the bucket of rods I thought, so what’s the big deal?

And then when my Miquon workbooks came in I was left scratching my head.  One homeschooling forum buddy perfectly summed up his first thought: “What kind of alien I.Q test is this?”

With encouragement from some homeschooling buddies already in-the-know I stuck with it and read through Lore Rasmussen’s books including the First Grade Diary.

As I read through it I could feel the “a-ha!” synapses sparking away in my brain. Suddenly, I wanted to try out the workbooks right away.  But I reigned myself in and held off.  I didn’t want to dive in too early and get burned out.  So I did some more research.  I found this amazing discovery book geared specifically for Pre-Miquon age kids- made and lovingly shared by another homeschooling mom.  I quickly printed it out and used it for our free play time with rods.

How much play time you ask?  LOTS.  We built trains and stairs,  princesses and dragons, houses and robots; we included chop sticks into the fun; we used rods to augment our living math books;  and we made up fun little games to incorporate them in our play.  We let our imaginations take over.

I wanted to take time building up my girls’ appreciation of c-rods so that when I pulled out this “math manipulative” my children would greet it, not as a boring educational resource, but as an enticing toy.

When I finally segued into the Miquon workbooks, Mira had confidence and a deep interest in the rods.  She liked them because she had already bonded with them.  The mathematical concepts hidden in the workbooks seem to jump right out from the pages and make themselves apparent in the rods.

Have I mentioned how much I like c-rods yet?!?

Have I piqued your interest?

If so, take some time watch this 1960′s video clip of Caleb Gattegno implementing the use of rods in a first grade classroom.  Yes- the video is old and over 20 minutes long; but take some time to watch it and see the magical mathematical diversity of these little sticks.

And no, my children do not sit half as obediently and studiously as the children in this class.  Nor do my children dress in little uniforms and have their hair neatly done. Heck- some days it’s all I can do to manage to get their hair brushed back from their eyes.  And uniforms- well, do costumes count?!  My teaching manner is about as un-Gattegno as can be.  I don’t come dressed to the nines nor speak in a charming accent.  I’m not as quick with drills and you won’t find me lecturing from the chalk board.  We prefer to play with our rods on the floor and I’m pretty much always found there ah-ing and oh-ing alongside my girls.

I’ll leave you with some images of my girls expanding on our Gobbling Gator game by including the ‘behind the back’ idea mentioned in the Gattegno video.  Mira and Stella would take turn placing rods of varying length behind one another’s back and the girls would choose the largest rod by feel and raise it the air.

Then they would complete an additional step by making a number sentence with our Gobblin’ Gator cards.

So yeah- we’re having fun with math.  Whoa- now that’s  a sentence my teenage-self would never have expected to hear come out of my mouth.  

C-rods!!!!!  Love them!

C-ya!

Linking up!