countrygal Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 I was all excited to order Miquon with Cuisenaire rods but they don't appear to have markings or indents for each '1'. Does that make sense? If you have a rod that's suppose to stand for 8, it should appear to be 8 blocks stuck together, right? How can I see and teach that the green has 3, plus the red that has 5, equals the orange that is 8? What use are these if you can't understand how much each is worth? Am I seeing this wrong? How to people use these? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErinE Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 This helps the child understand the parts to whole formation of numbers without using counting as a crutch. We played games (hiding rods behind the back, using the whites to measure the length, adding on the white one to find the next larger number). In my experience, my child learned the meaning of the colors faster than I did. ETA: Only in the beginning did I refer to the color. Now, I refer to the number. Show me the two rod. Show me the ten rod. For an equation, I ask, "What's two times three? Show me two groups of the three rod." My dd can quickly and easily pull out the two green threes and measure it to show the answer is the light green six rod. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 You don't want the markings. I know it seems counterintuitive, but the kids figure it out fast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 To teach what the colors mean, build a staircase. It will be really obvious which ones are which. Practice assigning numbers to rods. There are a lot of games to do this (check out that free C-rod activity book for using before Miquon). 4 year olds will typically figure out the color/number association much faster than adults. It is important that you NOT have markings on these. You want them to see the relationships, not sit there and count. So when you put 2 and 3 together and it's the same length as 5, they realize that 2+3=5 without counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 each time. So play some games to get to know the rods, and then once the kid knows which rods are which (and really, it won't take THEM long, especially if they're really young), start showing adding and subtracting with them. They're quite powerful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twoxcell Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 Markings are not necessary it only took my kids a little bit to figure out what each color stood for without even being told. When you get them try playing a few games with them and it will make sense. Check out the education unboxed videos for ideas. Spy Car is the C-rod expert so maybe he will pop in here and comment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosie_0801 Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 Markings would limit what you could use them for. Sometimes the white does not equal one. Sometimes it is 0.1 Sometimes the green equals one, like the other day when we were using the rods as props while singing '10 Green Bottles Hanging on the Wall." It would have been dumb to use the white rods to represent green bottles, wouldn't it? :p If the rods were marked, the problem would have looked like "10 Packets of Three Green Bottles Hanging on the Wall" which would have been a bit more complicated than we were aiming for! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lots of boys Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 I agree with all the posters. We love the C-rods and my kids figured out the colours in a few days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
countrygal Posted June 19, 2013 Author Share Posted June 19, 2013 Oh good, you all make me feel better! I think it would be harder for me. I just imagine myself asking, "Now how many is purple again?" Thanks for the examples of what to do with them. It makes more sense now! I'll check out the c-rod book, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boscopup Posted June 20, 2013 Share Posted June 20, 2013 Oh good, you all make me feel better! I think it would be harder for me. I just imagine myself asking, "Now how many is purple again?" Thanks for the examples of what to do with them. It makes more sense now! I'll check out the c-rod book, too. I still have to check with my kids to make sure I'm right when it comes to 7, 8, and 9. Not sure what it is about them! The others I have down pat. My kids have ZERO problems though. My middle son learned them at age 4, and it was easy peasy for him. He had his addition/subtraction facts memorized really quickly because he has pictures of the C-rods in his head (he thinks in pictures). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephanieZ Posted June 20, 2013 Share Posted June 20, 2013 In short, you don't want to be counting units, and also, each rod does not ALWAYS represent the same thing. For instance, when you do fractions, you might use the red rod (3, IIRC) to represent 1 while using the white rods (1) to represent 1/3. Or, you might use the light green (6, IIRC) to represent 3 and the whites to represent 1/2 . . . I agree that the kids figure out the colors/numbers very quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BugsMama Posted June 20, 2013 Share Posted June 20, 2013 Thank you so much for asking this- I had wondered.... and didn't buy them for this reason. I should buy them, right? Someone tell me I need more math manipulatives LOL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdventureMoms Posted June 20, 2013 Share Posted June 20, 2013 Oh good, you all make me feel better! I think it would be harder for me. I just imagine myself asking, "Now how many is purple again?" Thanks for the examples of what to do with them. It makes more sense now! I'll check out the c-rod book, too. Oh you will be asking that. And your kids probably answer you. My then four-year-old daughter picked it up very fast. I still need a reminder occasionally. We set up the stairsteps before we did anything else with the c-rods. It helps me, anyway, to have that reference. DD probably doesn't need it. She learned the color/number association from trying to tell me what they were, most likely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UrbanSue Posted June 20, 2013 Share Posted June 20, 2013 Just another plug to check out educationunboxed.com. There are lots of great videos there for using the rods, especially early on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
countrygal Posted June 20, 2013 Author Share Posted June 20, 2013 Good thing I asked all of you wise ones out there! Otherwise I probably wouldn't have bought them. I'm excited again now :) I put the education unboxed in my favorites folder as well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StartingOver Posted June 20, 2013 Share Posted June 20, 2013 Have you seen Rosie's Videos in my signature? She has some wonderful helpful ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamabear2three Posted June 20, 2013 Share Posted June 20, 2013 I asked this awhile back too and someone posted this awesome resource: http://www.nurturedbylove.ca/resources/cuisenairebook.pdf We've been playing with them some (she loves shoots and ladders the most) and we have most of them memorized already. (for some reason 7 is the easiest for me to remember, go figure!) My goal is to play all summer and come school starting in the fall, have the values memorized. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle Posted June 20, 2013 Share Posted June 20, 2013 The units of the rods are in 1 cm increments. When ds knew them all but I was still getting used to them I would keep a metric ruler on hand to measure the length of the rods I didn't know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
countrygal Posted June 21, 2013 Author Share Posted June 21, 2013 I asked this awhile back too and someone posted this awesome resource: http://www.nurturedb...senairebook.pdf We've been playing with them some (she loves shoots and ladders the most) and we have most of them memorized already. (for some reason 7 is the easiest for me to remember, go figure!) My goal is to play all summer and come school starting in the fall, have the values memorized. Thanks for posting this! I want to use the c-rods for my kindy dd as some fun math. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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