Cuisenaire rods ROCK.

Here are some of my favourite Cuisenaire rod tasks for elementary.  There are so many cool things to be done with these materials, I can’t begin to delve into it all here, but start with some of these ideas and see what kinds of thinking your students come up with.  Remember it’s critical to record the numbers to accompany with your students’ constructions – modelling for them how a mathematician would record their reasoning is so very important.  It allows students to formalize their learning and make connections to the “naked math”…  (A phrase a dear friend of mine used to use often.  Attention-getting, no??)

As well, I’ve uploaded are some Cuisenaire provocations — images to inspire creativity that your younger students may enjoy.  To keep the play moving mathematically, try placing one or more of these pictures at the table where students are exploring the materials.  You can suggest…