Were you taught math with C-rods?

[Heathermomster]

Were you taught math with c-rods as a child? How did that learning impact you?

 

I don't recall learning basic math, but I'm fairly certain c-rods were not used. I grew up to be STEM.

 

I'm just curious to know if any adults actually experienced using them as kiddos. Blessings and Thank-you...h

[Amira]

I didn't use them at school, but I used them at home. I don't know if they had much impact on me (I don't have anything to compare to). I do have clear memories of using them and have now used them with all three of my children. They certainly make teaching math easier, I think.

[bettyandbob]

I'll add that while I bought some, I don't like them and didn't end up using them much. I found the base ten blocks more helpful.

 

I may have used them briefly. I remember more base ten type materials used when I was in Montessori school (grades 2-3).

 

I also purchased c-rods for use with my oldest and quickly wished I'd spent the money on base ten blocks.

[JustEm]

I used them and many other manipulatives as a child. I don't know if they specifically helped me become very advanced in math but I do attribute the use of manipulatives at a young age with my love for math.

[Laurie4b]

I used them to teach my kids (as well as base 10 blocks). I'll share an anecdote with you. The fall after 2nd grade, ds#1 was upset that he'd forgotten some of his multiplication tables. He soon recovered the memories. One of the things he would do would be to hold a group of Cuisenaire rods in his hands. say a group of 7 of the ones 8 units long. He would pause and then come up with the correct answer. It was like he could feel the quantity in his hand.

[Cinder]

I don't remember using any manipulatives for learning math. With my dc we've used fingers and popsicle sticks.

[stripe]

I went to a Montessori school, and my mother has fond memories of the various manipulatives including the cubes in the classroom. They didn't make much of an impact on me, apparently.

 

I also know someone who wrote a book about c-rods.

[bensonduck]

I had some at home that I think I must have received as a gift. I played with them a little but I think I was either too old for them, or could have benefited from some more directed play to really understand how they worked. I remember more about the little case they came in and how the ends felt a bit "furry".

[itsheresomewhere]

If my school had them, my class never used them.

[Eagle]

I did not, but dh used them as a supplement at home in early elementary. He now has a master's degree in math. Don't know what direct impact the rods had, but he loves math!

[Ellie]

Nope. Never heard of any such thing until after I started hsing. Didn't use them with my dc, either.

 

I took a class at an educational supply store of some kind on manipulatives. I thought that since I was doing curriculum counseling with the parents who were enrolling their dc in my umbrella school I should have a clue. So, this half-day class (which cost me over $30) spent most of the time messing with pentominos and pattern blocks ("Can you fill this space using only red blocks? With only blue blocks? How many ways can you find to fill this space?" GAH). I was the only non-professional person in the class; the others were all public school teachers, who were there because the state was going to be changing to textbooks that relied heavily on manipulatives. The others were oooh-ing and ah-ing, and I could only think about the Emperor's new clothes, lol. Finally, the last 15 minutes, we did base 10 blocks. WOW!!! Those were great!!! I could *totally* see how they could be helpful!! Never figured out the usefulness of the others, although it was fun playing with the pattern blocks.

 

And then I decided I should learn how to use C-rods. A friend had raved about them, and I messed with them some but didn't feel the joy. So I bought Mathematics Made Meaningful, and after doing a few of the task cards, I was as excited as she. :-)

 

I'm still more of a traditional math person than a process math person, and I'm not convinced that *all* children *must* use maniplutives, but I can see their usefulness in some situations. :-)

[Heather in Neverland]

Not that I remember.

[*Michelle*]

Nope. And I would love it if someone would let me know about the "mystery" of place value. I must be missing something because I don't ever remember it being a big issue. Not saying this snarkily, either. I read over and over again on these forums about place value issues and I don't know what it is that I don't know.

 

ETA: I don't want to derail this thread, though. I'll start a thread in the Gen Ed forum.

[kitten18]

I was not, and like WendyK said, I don't remember even learning about place value. :glare:

 

 

I do think there were some VERY, VERY lucky kids in Miquon, PA who got to experience Cuisenaire Rods/math with Lore Rasmussen.

[happyhomemaker]

I don't remember using manipulatives at all in school. I minored in math though so I guess I still picked up on the concepts. I did think I was really bad at math until I got to algebra. I'm not fast with math facts, and in elementary school you weren't good if you weren't fast. I was so relieved to find a type of math I was good at in middle school. Looking back, I feel a little sad that I could have enjoyed math when I was younger if the emphasis had been on understanding concepts.

[Ellie]

I don't remember using manipulatives at all in school. I minored in math though so I guess I still picked up on the concepts. I did think I was really bad at math until I got to algebra. I'm not fast with math facts, and in elementary school you weren't good if you weren't fast. I was so relieved to find a type of math I was good at in middle school. Looking back, I feel a little sad that I could have enjoyed math when I was younger if the emphasis had been on understanding concepts.

 

As far as "understanding concepts," I have to learn How to Do It, and then I have to do it multiple times until it lives in my head, and *then* you can tell my why it works.

 

I remember clearly, when I was 10yo, asking my grandmother to help me with some mixed fractions. She said, "You'll have to ask your grandfather when he gets home. I'm not good at math either." You can see why I thought I wasn't good at math. :glare: I went to live with my mother and stepfather in another state that summer; in the sixth grade I had a man math teacher who didn't believe that girls were necessarily bad at math, and I did quite well. In the seventh grade, I had a male math teacher who had no idea I'd ever had any problems with math, and I aced the class. I never learned to love math, and I don't know how the heck I even made it through algebra, but I'm pretty good at basic arithmetic, TYVM. :-)

[Arcadia]

No math manipulatives at all when hubby and I were in school. Class size was 40~45. My kids didn't like any of the math manipulatives their school had. We learn place values with real money. Hubby and I have our first degree in engineering so I guess not using and not liking manipulatives did no harm.

[kubiac]

We had them at home and I really enjoyed getting them out and playing with them, but they were never a math too. I just made staircases with them, over and over.

[Dandelion]

I don't recall using any math manipulatives as a child.

[diplomum]

We had them at my school in the UK, but my memory of using them is a bit fuzzy so I can't say if they were helpful or not. I am quite good at math though :coolgleamA: . My 15yo loved them and it helped him a lot but my weirdly wired 13yo could NOT remember what value each rod had and it drove us both totally batty.

[MomtoCandJ]

I remember using them for 2, 3, and 4th grade. Didn't help me a whole lot, well at least now any way. I also remember the base 10 blocks, those were much more helpful to me. I'm thinking of trying to get some for dd.

[Laura Corin]

I think my parents had them for us at home, but I don't remember using them. I'm reasonably good at maths, but nothing unusual.

 

L

[ladydusk]

I have a vague memory of putting C-Rods away in my 2nd grade classroom. They had to be put in the tray in a certain way. That memory implies that we used them in a lesson but I have no memory of that LOL.

 

I went to an open concept school in the late 70s early 80s.

[Laura Corin]

How yesteryear are we talking? LOL

 

 

I grew up using pounds shillings and pence (12 pennies to the shilling; twenty shillings to the pound), then converted. When I worked in a cake shop at 16, I was still translating for old ladies who came into the shop. And we added up the prices in our heads/on scraps of paper. I think that did have more effect on my maths than any C-rod experience. But I don't know that my experience was typical.

 

L

[Arcadia]

I've been having a tough time teaching my 7 year old how to keep the nickel and dime straight. The problem is that I almost never use cash or coins!

 

 

My boys memorise by the hair pattern on the nickel and dime for math test. Nickel has a "ponytail" while dime has short hair. For real coins they know nickel is bigger than dime.

We purposely pay cash at McDonalds and kids buy their own food.

[Ellie]

I grew up using pounds shillings and pence (12 pennies to the schilling; twenty shillings to the pound), then converted. When I worked in a cake shop at 16, I was still translating for old ladies who came into the shop. And we added up the prices in our heads/on scraps of paper. I think that did have more effect on my maths than any C-rod experience. But I don't know that my experience was typical.

 

 

 

I think actual usage makes a bigger difference than whether one learned with manipulatives or not. :-)

[ScoutTN]

yes, in K and 1st at a montessori school.

[Chris in VA]

I recall being introduced to them in elementary or Jr Hi school, but it was "too late" for me and my classmates, I think. We had already been taught the major operations, and these lovely little colorful sticks were interesting, but we kept trying to "translate" them--not "thinking in Cuisinare" but numbers. ("OH, Jimmy figured out that's a SEVEN --that's an EIGHT!")

I have a feeling they were probably just a new idea the teacher was trying out.

 

Of course, I was also part of a stupid math experimental philosophy where 4 or 5 of us 6th graders were simply given a math book and allowed to go thru it "at our own pace," without any instruction. Talk about dumb.

 

But back to CRs--I think it makes a difference, introducing them early, before kids can use the "numbers."

[prairiewindmomma]

I had one teacher who used them. I mostly remember trying to put them away in the tray.

 

I had another teacher a couple of years later who was into base 10 blocks and geometrical solids.

 

My most effective math teacher was my 2nd grade teacher who taught me to do all of my multiplication and division facts quickly and who taught me place value and therefore why/how to line up my columns in doing multidigit equations. I didn't grow a lot conceptually that year, but I came out at about a 5th grade level of understanding. Having all of my operations down cold has served me well.

[LAS in LA]

I didn't use C-rods as a child, but in college a professor used them to demonstrate sentence word order. This was in a class for teachers of English as a 2nd language. I don't remember much of what she showed us, but I think each color stood for a different type of word (nouns, verbs, etc.)

 

There is an hilarious essay about C-rods in this book: http://www.amazon.com/Will-Mrs-Major-hell-collected/dp/B0006EV6S0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369432390&sr=8-1&keywords=will+mrs.+major+go+to+hell The essay is called "Spare me the rods". We do use rods now and I like them.

[regentrude]

No. I do not recall any math manipulatives at all - except for one large abacus in front of the class.

I ended up becoming a theoretical physicist, so my math education must have been good despite the lack of C rods.

[regentrude]

I would speculate that a lot of students didn't need manipulatives in yesteryear. Their normal chores and daily living activities would have allowed them to develop the skills and mental abilities that manipulatives do now for some students.

 

That is a thought. When I was little, I got to go to the corner bakery and get bread even before I started school.. Walking to school, getting ice cream in the way home, stopping at little shops to make small purchases paying with coins happened almost daily.

How much that did for my math abilities I can not say; all the kids grew up like this, and some did not "get" math.

[regentrude]

 

Sadly we weren't even taught the concept of place value when I was in school. Crazy.

 

How then did you ever learn to manipulate numbers with more than one digit???

[fairfarmhand]

 

How yesteryear are we talking? LOL

 

I've been having a tough time teaching my 7 year old how to keep the nickel and dime straight. The problem is that I almost never use cash or coins!

I bet that's why kids could do it way back. Cause they were more used to cash.

 

I don't remember any manipulatives in school, other than an abacus, that I never learned how to use!

[Farrar]

Nope. I was in an odd gifted program as a child. They handed us the math text and said, have at it. We would take a "pre-test" for each chapter and then, if we aced it, we skipped the chapter. If we missed just a couple of things, the teacher would help us find work to practice it before the "post-test." If we totally failed, then we were told to go through and do every page. I really liked it, but I think it probably would have been good to get more hands-on instruction. Later on, when I wasn't allowed to go at my own pace because I went to different schools, I found math alternately boring and baffling. It would be dull and too easy, I would tune it out and then suddenly, I would have missed something important and would completely fail the homework. Oh well.

 

I was introduced to the rods in grad school and then the middle school where I taught had loads of them. I didn't have a lot of guidelines for using them - I had never heard of Miquon, for example - but I used to pull them out to demonstrate things to my remedial students in math. I guess I should note that while I taught math, I was never the math teacher. I got saddled with it because it was a small school. I was the humanities teacher and then the Dean of Students.

[Chris in VA]

FW that sounds like my math class! May I ask what area of the country and about what year you experienced that? I was in Ohio, in 1974-75.

As an educator, I've always wondered if that came from somewhere or had some official name.

[KungFuPanda]

I never saw them until college in my Elm. Ed. Math courses. I like them, and think they CAN be useful, but I never used them teaching my own kids. We did SIngapore Math and they never came up.

 

Dh is a mathematician and never heard of them until I told him about them.

[garddwr]

I can't say I was actually taught with them, but I did play with C-rods for hours at a time along with my siblings. I have no idea how much impact that did or did not have, though I had a very solid understanding of basic math concepts.