Red Rods

Materials:

Ten wooden red rods which differ only in length. The other two dimensions remain the same. The shortest rod is 10cm long, the next one 20cm and they increase by the length of the first rod to 1 meter. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 cm x 2.4 cm x 2.4 cm
A rug 36”x48” or 2 smaller rugs placed together

Purposes:

Age: 3 ½ - 4

Preparation: The child has worked with the Pink Tower and the Brown Stair

Presentation:

Invite the child for a lesson on the Red Rods. Have the child get a rug and unroll it on the floor.
Take the shortest rod vertically to the rug using fingers of both hands.
Set the rods at random on the lower half of the rug.
After a few, invite the child to carry them vertically with both hands.
Once all are on the rug, sit on your knees with the child to your left.
Emphasize “the looking” to find the longest rod. One hand on each end of the longest rod to move it to the top left of the rug.
Run two fingers of the right hand across the length of the rod from left to right, while the straight left-hand keeps the left edge aligned.
Continue selecting rods, holding them from the ends, aligning them at the left, and placing them in sequence longest to shortest in descending order toward you until all the rods are placed.
When finished, stand with the child and look at the rods from all angles.
Dismantle the rods by placing them in random order at the lower half of the rug.
Invite the child and encourage repetition.
Fade and observe.
When the child is done, remind them to dismantle the rods before putting them away.

Control of Error: The child’s own judgment/visual discrimination of disharmony

Language: Long-short, Superlatives: longest and shortest, & Comparatives: longer than and shorter than.

Following Exercises:

Unit of Measure: Place the shortest rod at the end of the second rod. Move it up to the end of the third rod. After you demonstrate a few, allow the child to have a turn.
Invite the child to build it blindfolded (stereognostic sense).

Memory Games:

Distance Games: where the child builds the rods at a rug far from the rug where the rods are placed at random
Comparative Language Game: (“Bring me a rod that is longer than this one.”)
Comparing the Material to the Environment: by using the rods to find things that are the same length.
Group Game: where the rods can be put on the laps of the children while each child takes a turn to place the next shortest rod while building the rods as a group. The rods will be on the child’s lap because they will be too long to hide behind their back.

Pedagogical Notes:

If after a few days, the child is having difficulty arranging the red rods in order, you can arrange the rods randomly, so they are aligned on the left side of the rug.
This material can be challenging because it changes in only one dimension.
Mix up the rods if the child brings them to the rug in order.
The children are free to explore the material to come up with their own variations, but they must be able to build the tower properly first.
If the material does not fit on one rug use two end-to-end
You may hear of this material being called the Long Rods.
This material was originally designed by Dr. Seguin and used initially by Dr. Montessori in the Orthophrenic School. (Crumpton Hardy, 1917).

Brown Stair