Pink Tower
Materials:
10 pink wooden cubes ranging from 1cm³ to 10cm³, differing in 3 dimensions
Rug
Small stand to keep the tower on
Purposes:
Visual discrimination of dimension (size)
Refinement of voluntary movement
Indirect preparation of the Mathematical Mind
Age: 3 - 3 ½
Preparation: The child has worked with the Cylinder Blocks
Presentation:
Invite the child for a lesson on the Pink Tower.
Have the child get a rug and unroll it onto the floor.
Take one cube at a time, holding with the fingers, and set at random on the right side of the rug.
At the fourth cube, support with your left hand underneath and ask the child to help bring some to the rug.
Sit at the rug on the right side of the child.
Emphasize “the looking” for the largest cube.
Place it in front of the child on the left side of the rug.
Continue in this way, stacking the subsequent cube centered upon the last, always emphasizing “the looking”.
When complete, stand with the child and view the tower from all angles
Sit back down and begin dismantling the tower taking one cube at a time and placing them on the right side of the rug at random.
Invite the child and encourage repetition.
Fade and observe.
When the child is done, remind them to dismantle the tower before putting it away.
Control of Error:
The child’s own judgment/visual discrimination of disharmony.
Language:
Large – small, Superlatives: largest, smallest & Comparatives: larger than, smaller than
Following Exercises:
Showing the Unit of Measure: Build the tower perfectly lining up two sides. Walk around and look as before. Take the smallest cube and run it along the edge of the ledges. Do a few and then let the child do the rest. Dismantle the tower and let the child build it in the same way.
Invite the child to build it blindfolded (stereognostic sense).
Memory Games:
Distance Game: At random on one rug and built one at a time on another rug far away.
Comparative Language Game: (“Bring me a cube that is larger than this one.”)
Group Game: 5-10 children (“Who thinks they have the next one?”)
Pedagogical Notes:
Do not correct the way the child builds their tower.
The cubes are at first in a state of chaos on the right and brought to order in front of the child on the left.
This is a very mathematical presentation.
When we emphasize “the looking”, we are demonstrating metacognition or how we think about what we are doing.
The children are free to explore the material by coming up with their own variations, but they must be able to build the tower properly first.