Cuisenaire Rods in the Classroom

1. The year 1 children have been asked to find all the ways of making the same length as the given rod. Groups are discussing the best way of working systematically. Their trains show commutativity of addition and substitution of rods.

2. Children in year 1 are asked to write something they know about the rods. They are writing their own equations using addition and equals sign, using rods on the interactive whiteboard to demonstrate their understanding.

3. As above,

4. Children in year 1 have been asked to write something they know about the rods without the rods present.

5. Children in years 2 and 3 are working in groups naming rods as fractions by comparison with other rods. They are becoming aware of fractions having more than one name.

6. Children in year 4 are naming fractions by comparing rods, looking for equivalent fraction names.

7. As above.

8. Children choose rods to demonstrate and support their reasoning about fractions, decimals and percentages.

9. As above.

10. Year 6 children are using rods to demonstrate and support their reasoning about fractions and decimals of larger numbers.

11. As above.

12. As above.

13. Children in Year 3 have named the length of the orange rod as representing a scale of 1litre, they then name other rods as fractions of a litre and millilitres.

14. Children in Year 5 have found the prime factors of a number using Gattegno’s use of crosses of rods. They are then combining them systematically to find all factors of 90. These are the same children from Video 1, now in year 5 using the same systematic approach. They make only occasional use of the rods to support thinking.

15. Children are playing Goutard’s game of transforming equations one term at a time. These are the same children who were seen writing their own equations in earlier videos, now in Y5.