Cuisenaire Rods

When I was looking through the available sets of Cuisenaire rods for my classroom, I was disappointed to see that there weren't any affordable class sets that were made of wood. I settled on this set because it provided the quantity I need at a reasonable price. I've been pleasantly surprised by the solid quality of these rods. They are plastic, which wouldn't be my preferred material, but they don't have that cheap hollow plastic feel. The texture and heft are reminiscent of wood, and they even look like wood unless you examine them closely. The colors are bright and deep, and are saturated through the entire piece, not just painted on. I've chosen to keep the individual sets of rods in the original plastic bags, rather than sorting them by size/color and putting them in the dividers. The one problem I've found is that the bags aren't going to last long with my classes of 7th-graders. However, that's a very minor problem, and of course I wouldn't be worth my salt as a teacher if I didn't have some alternative plastic bags sitting around my classroom. I bought these rods to support an extended unit on fractions that I am teaching to my two remedial classes. The students are enjoying using the rods. (Some of them, naturally, are enjoying using them as blocks to build things, but mostly I can quash that behavior.) This is helping them develop a visual model of the underlying relationships between quantities that they need in order to build a deep understanding of fractions -- a key missing piece in the mathematical history of many of my students. Overall, both as a learning tool and from an artistic/design point of view, these rods have exceeded my expectations of what I'd get for this price.

I teach 4th grade and fractions are really hard. These rods were super helpful for kids when it came to being able to identify equivalent fractions.

I was skeptical of these, when someone first recommended them for our primary school in Laos. I gave them a try, and they're great. You'll need to get some ideas -- there's plenty online -- about ways to use them, and invest a little time figuring out what works best in your situation. Here's one that we start with, as an introduction to the rods for grades 1 to 5. First, have students make "steps", putting the shortest piece on top, the next shortest below it, and so on. Then students put their hands behind their back, and the teacher or student assistant gives them a random piece. The student is to guess, by feel, which length (and thus, which color) it is. They love it, and it's a new type of sensory experience.

These have been a great addition to our home school. We had a smaller set, but this larger set gives us many more avenues to explore mathematical querries.

The Cuisenaire Rods are helping my students understand fractions at a whole new level.

I bought two cases for my fourth grade class so I could introduce fractions. There are 15 packs in each case and an appropriate amount of each rod in each pack. The quality was perfect and the price was not bad for the amount I received. Highly recommend these for teachers.

Love that they were already separated into sets and I love how many sets there are. This is great if you do a lot with math manipulatives.

I was VERY pleasantly surprised that the rods were already separated into sets. I was prepared to count them into zip loc bags myself but didn't have to. My 4th grade students absolutely love it when I say it is a 'rod puzzle" day during math time.