Miquon and Rods

[abba12]

I am looking to use Monique in the future, but am considering buying some rods now as manipulatives for work we are doing.

 

I grew up with MUS and their rods, which have raised squares for each 'unit', like this,

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gTGukS_kHkk/TwtMMUNyBAI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/XmesZDOaXBo/s1600/christmas+eve%252C+party%252C+abby+121.JPG

This clearly indicates the value of the rods, it is 3 units, or whatever,

 

cuisinaire rods, on the other hand, appear to simply be sticks, with nothing to represent their value except their length comparative to the other sticks, and their colour. If you didn't memorize the colour, you'd have a hard time picking up a 6 block and knowing it was 6, not 5 or 7. Is that right?

 

Even when I was at school, the 10 rods had lines, splitting the rod into 10 units, and ditto with the hundreds. I've never actually seen cuisinaire rods (I live in Australia, so slightly different methods)

 

I think that I vastly prefer the MUS rods with their obvious values which don't rely on memorizing a colour. It just makes more sense to me and would help me a lot in explaining concepts, and it's what I'm comfortable with. My question is, is there any reason I couldn't use MUS blocks with Miquon? Are Cuisinare rods made without the unit blocks for an intentional reason? I want to check this isn't part of their 'unusual approach to math' before I purchase anything.

[Ellie]

Cuisenaire rods have "units." They are the white ones. But there are also red (the same size as two white), light green (three whites), purple (four whites), yellow (five whites), dark green (six whites), black (seven whites), brown (eight whites), blue (nine whites), and orange (10 whites). You make trains of the different colors to see which ones are the same size as other ones, e.g., four whites equals one purple or two reds or one light green and one white, and so on. It isn't a matter of having to memorize anything. Children play with the rods and automatically make those connections over time; the moving from 1 red + 2 light green = yellow to 2 + 3 = 5 is a painless one.

 

It is not an "unusual approach." It is very similar to base 10 blocks, and presumably to MUS (which I have not used).

 

If you want to do Miquon, then get C-rods. If you don't want to use C-rods, then do MUS. :-)

[Farrar]

Well, this topic tends to be a whole can of worms. ;)

 

Many people stridently believe (and I agree, though perhaps not stridently) that the rods are much better without the lines.  The lines encourage counting while the lack of lines encourages seeing it as a whole piece.  Kids typically have the colors down within a few days of play so it's not really an issue.  Also, the rods are used to represent things other than their number - for example, when we used them to work with fractions, a yellow rod rarely meant "five."

 

I think it's fine to branch out and use MUS rods or others and I think that the right manipulatives with the right kid can always be positive, but really, there is a special magic about those C-rods and their lack of lines.

[Spy Car]

I am looking to use Monique in the future, but am considering buying some rods now as manipulatives for work we are doing.

 

I grew up with MUS and their rods, which have raised squares for each 'unit', like this,

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gTGukS_kHkk/TwtMMUNyBAI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/XmesZDOaXBo/s1600/christmas+eve%252C+party%252C+abby+121.JPG

This clearly indicates the value of the rods, it is 3 units, or whatever,

 

cuisinaire rods, on the other hand, appear to simply be sticks, with nothing to represent their value except their length comparative to the other sticks, and their colour. If you didn't memorize the colour, you'd have a hard time picking up a 6 block and knowing it was 6, not 5 or 7. Is that right?

 

Even when I was at school, the 10 rods had lines, splitting the rod into 10 units, and ditto with the hundreds. I've never actually seen cuisinaire rods (I live in Australia, so slightly different methods)

 

I think that I vastly prefer the MUS rods with their obvious values which don't rely on memorizing a colour. It just makes more sense to me and would help me a lot in explaining concepts, and it's what I'm comfortable with. My question is, is there any reason I couldn't use MUS blocks with Miquon? Are Cuisinare rods made without the unit blocks for an intentional reason? I want to check this isn't part of their 'unusual approach to math' before I purchase anything.

There is a reason the C Rods are not scored. That is so children can't count them. It is quite intentional. Instead of counting they quickly learn to discern the length of rods and to understand that in ordinary use the number value of the rod is the same as its length in centimeters.

 

Most kids grasp this very quickly, are are not sabotaged by trying to "count" the scores. One of the main reasons people use C Rods is to keep kids from "counting" and so them to instead grasp the parts that make a whole (or what Singapore calls "number bonds") mentally. C Rods are very effective for this purpose, and much better IMO than using scored rods (than almost inevitably encourage counting).

 

Bill

[Spy Car]

Well, this topic tends to be a whole can of worms. ;)

 

Many people stridently believe (and I agree, though perhaps not stridently) that the rods are much better without the lines. The lines encourage counting while the lack of lines encourages seeing it as a whole piece. Kids typically have the colors down within a few days of play so it's not really an issue. Also, the rods are used to represent things other than their number - for example, when we used them to work with fractions, a yellow rod rarely meant "five."

 

I think it's fine to branch out and use MUS rods or others and I think that the right manipulatives with the right kid can always be positive, but really, there is a special magic about those C-rods and their lack of lines.

Consider me amoung "the strident" :D

 

Bill

[abba12]

Ok well that brings another question to mind, counting.

 

I'm not sure I understand why people are against counting? I admit it's likely from how I was taught as a child, but don't children learn to add 2 + 2 by counting two higher than two? And I still see number lines in use, which use counting I presume, by moving two numbers further on the number line.

 

I suppose I was taught in a system that placed a very high emphasis on place values, which has continued to give me a certain perspective on math today, so the idea that 4 is 4 units, as opposed to 4 being a whole piece is quite ingrained in me. The concept of 4, to me, is a grouping of 4 'ones' units. So to see 4, as a single idea as opposed to a group, confuses me. On the other hand, to me, 10 is a single unit, as is 100. But 200 is two units of hundreds, not 200 units of ones. 

 

I'm not saying counting is correct, I'm open to having my mind changed, I'm saying that I'm unsure of the reasoning behind this debate. Why is counting bad? I am finding it hard to break out of the mindset I was taught to even understand how a child would learn to add and subtract without counting forwards or backwards, at least at the beginning until they memorize facts. I have looked at the miquon sheets, and maybe that's what confuses me there too. When I see the picture with the 5 rod on top and the 2 rod and 3 rod below, I don't look at them as abstract wholes of different sizes, I look at them as a way of grouping the 5 units of 5 into two groups, or figuring out how many units to add to a group. So 5-3, to me, is a question of what sized group do I need to add to a group of 3 to make a group of 5 (obviously, I don't insert the word group anymore, but if asked to explain it, that's how it would come out)

 

Despite my apparently reliance on counting, I do form what I assume are 'number bonds'. For example (I was reading this issue in a thread about miquon earlier today) the sum 8+6. I subtract 2 from 6 (because I know 8+2=10, i.e. a whole 'ten' unit) then add 4 'ones'. In my mind, I don't add 4, I add 4 'ones'. Those ones are fluid, which is why two of them can leave the 6 group to join the 8 group and create a whole 10. 

 

As a side note for reference, I was regularly top in my class for math at school, and accelerated when homeschooled. I scored the only perfect score in my entire state once for a mathematical aptitude test, so whatever I learnt apparently worked for me. 

 

So, what am I missing here? Is my thinking drastically different? Could someone explain what I am doing differently to some of these curricula which emphasize not counting?

[countrygal]

I asked about this a few months ago as it bothered me. Here is the link (hopefully it works! otherwise, let me know.) The answers make sense to me.

 

 

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/477495-why-dont-cuisenaire-rods-have-markings/?hl=%2Bcuisenaire+%2Brods+%2Bmarkings&do=findComment&comment=5032446

[a27mom]

I thought as you did originally. I tried to use lego to mimic the rods, (because I am cheap that way and we have lots of lego). But she always counted them, even though I color coded them like the rods.

Finally i picked up a used set of c-rods. They are great. My daughter is very mathy, but has trouble w/ knowing math facts as she is a young 6. Counting just doesn't work with higher numbers, and we have been a bit stuck. so today i gave her the rods as she worked on math. I was amazed! first of all, she had such a great grasp on the values of the rods. she has mostly played with them herself prior to this, but she knew how long each was without comparing. Most importantly, I was amazed at how she seemed to instantly know her math facts when she could look at the rods. She wasn't counting or comparing, she could just see it.

 

They also are colorful and fun. :). Highly highly recommend the real thing.

[nansk]

I don't want to debate; I'll just add my experience fyi.

 

I live in Singapore, where (afaiknew) Cuisinaire rods were not available and shipping from the US is very expensive. I bought another brand of coloured rods that had the same sizes and colours as the C-rods, except that they are scored and have the numeral written on one face. My dd used them for several years with Miquon, MEP and Singapore Maths.

 

She never counted the markings on the rods. We built rod stairs a couple of times and she quickly learnt which rod represented which number - just as she would have had I bought the original C-rods.

 

In 2nd grade, we used the rods for learning about fractions, and she was able to grasp that the same rods now stood for a different number.

 

Imho for most kids, the "scored/not scored" is a non-issue. I would suggest you get whatever you like and can easily obtain.

[happypamama]

I'm not going to debate marked vs. not marked, but I will say that I thought the MUS rods were larger than the C-rods, and not 1 cm. So for that reason, they wouldn't work as well with a lot of the Miquon pages, because it's not always a matter of "use the unit and the one that is three times the unit;" sometimes the length is actually important. If you used bigger rods, you wouldn't come up with the same area of a rectangle, for instance.

 

Now, I could be wrong about that, so I'd check it first.

[kbutton]

The MUS rods are larger, and they are different colors than c-rods. I started my son in MUS Primer for PreK, and then I heard about Miquon. My son has no trouble with either set of rods, and he doesn't count them (he did at first). He learned them both very quickly. I don't believe you lose the value of counting or counting on with the c-rods. They can use the one rod to do this, as others have stated. But, if they don't stop counting at some point, then it could be a problem if that makes sense. Also, Miquon uses a number line, so they can count or count on with that method. Just some thoughts--we aren't that far into Miquon, and my son really likes math, so your mileage may vary. Also, as I stated before, he had already done some math with MUS, so it's not like we were starting from scratch (in case that's what you are doing).

 

If you haven't looked at the Education Unboxed videos that are free online, those would show you some of thinking behind the rods--it's so much better to have a demonstration. I wasn't so sure at first, but when I watched those, my first thought was that I'd need more rods and that I'd have my older son do some of the activities even though he is beyond many of them conceptually (he never used rods, but he did some Montessori work in PreK).

[Arboreal TJ]

We started with MUS rods. My kids were familiar with them so we started Miquon using scored rods. I bought C-rods to use for fractions thinking my kids wouldn't associate a number value with the rods. It didn't work, just playing with the rods my kids figured out the value and when fractions rolled around my very literal kid couldn't grasp 1/3 rd or 2/3 rds. It was alway "no mom that's not 2/3rds that is 4." Or "mom that's not 1, it's 6.â€

 

I do like the scored rods because my kids quickly see groups I.e. two groups of 2 with another 1 is 5, two groups of 3 is 6 etc.

 

My kids don't count the scours on the rods, that has never been an issue.

 

I suppose it would depend on the child, we are not experiencing any of the negatives "the stringent" have warned about. We're also fairly new to this rodeo, I have yet to develop any "stringencies" :-)

[deanna1949]

I'm not opposed to the scored plastic rods, but having used both kinds, we are partial to the wooden Cuisenaire rods. We just like the tactile quality of the wood. We didn't care for the linking rods either.

[LEK]

Honestly I love both and we use both regualrly.

My kids prefer the MUS blocks and I like that they have the individual units marked on them, to me it helps them solidify the concept that 4 = 4 units etc. When adding or subtracting they rarely (if ever) count the units but it does help them "see" the answer better IMO.

On the other hand I love the c-rods and there is a benefit to having them not scored. They cannot rely on counting (not that mine do) but the main benefit is that we can assign different values to the rods with less confusion as their original value is not scored onto them.

We are yet to start miquon (starting next month) so maybe we will get better value out of our c-rods soon but we would usually use the MUS blocks here.

[nansk]

...the MUS rods were larger than the C-rods, and not 1 cm. So for that reason, they wouldn't work as well with a lot of the Miquon pages, because it's not always a matter of "use the unit and the one that is three times the unit;" sometimes the length is actually important. If you used bigger rods, you wouldn't come up with the same area of a rectangle, for instance....

Yes, this is right.

 

OP, if you are going to do Miquon, you have to use the C-rods and not the MUS ones. (Although there is one member here whose dds did not use any rods at all.)