Set of 72 wooden rods. This set is ideal for use with 2-3 students. Cuisenaire rods are often under utilised, but are an extremely versatile and useful mathematical teaching aid. They can be used for the four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division), but are also great for practicing with fractions and proportional reasoning.

Find some simple activities below to get you started. – Build a staircase with rods from 1 to 10. What is the total volume? And what would the volume be if there were 50 ‘steps’? – Create a pattern with different sized rods. Make sure your partner can’t see your pattern. Describe what the pattern looks like so your partner can duplicate your design. Start of simple with a 2D design, and start adding layers to make it more complicated.

Perfect for communication skills, spatial thinking, asking the right questions and more. – Find out in how many ways you can create a ‘train’ with the same length as the orange rod by using 2 different rods. How many combinations can you find using 3 rods? And 4? – Use Cuisenaire rods for algebraic models. For instance: one train of two red rods is the same length as a train of 4 white rods. You can write this down as 4W = 2R. Let your students explain the relation between this equation and the trains they see in front of them. – Create a pattern by using different Cuisenaire Rods. On a piece of paper, draw the reflection of the pattern.

Wood is made from Aspen or Alder.