More on Those Cool Rods

So yesterday I decided we'd start the day with the Cuisenaire Rods. Lots of rods and lots of activities. I found a few ideas in the primary idea book for the Cuisenaire Rods that I thought would be fun to start us off.

I ordered these from Rainbow Resource. I don't know much about the rods and I sure don't have a ton of time to think things out so these are really helpful.

I thought this purchase would make it easy for E10 to use the rods as well. These Roddles have brainteasers and games that use the rods.

Here's the one E10 solved yesterday. He did one more as well. They are tricky and it took some time, but he did it. We decided not to reveal the picture with the answer!

Everybody had time to do some free play with the rods building 3D ideas as well as the flat kind.

Here they are transposing their design onto grid paper. We had a good discussion on whether or not their designs were symmetrical. This was a review and I'm happy to report they remember it well.

I-6 is transposing his. They also did a design without grid paper where the rods could be diagonal.

We spent some time getting to know the rods- how they have specific sizes and shapes. We did a cool activity on sound where you drop the rods and note the different pitch sounds the rods make as they fall. We applied that to the sound of musical instruments based on their size. Pretty cool.

The next time we get out the rods, maybe we'll play a game. I'll have to think on that one.