These are my Long Rods, aka Red Rods. I made them from something I found at Home Depot, then painted two sides red and the other two sides to be the number rods. This is actually a no-no in Montessori, but since I have limited space and resources, I think it's better than not having the materials at all.
These are the long rods set out in the maze formation. Next to it is Ariel, dd's "kitten".
These are my alternative cylinder blocks. As I mentioned in one of the comment sections, the blocks are supposed to have 10 cylinders in each block and they're supposed to be knobbed. They're also supposed to be about 3-5 times bigger than what I have (sorry, I didn't include something to give a sense of how small mine really are--each block is less than a foot long).
My blocks came with colourful cylinders: a red set, a green set, a yellow set and a blue set. Had I left them that way, they could have been used for a Montessori activity called The Knobless Cylinders. But you lose the whole point of the cylinder blocks if they are different colours and I wanted the cylinder blocks more than the knobless cylinders. (Besides, these cylinders are so small, many of the knobless cylinder activities wouldn't have worked out.) At some point, the child is supposed to be able to mix two sets together and visually figure out where to put each cylinder. If it's colour-coded, you get one in the right place and the rest of that block is easy. So, I painted them all brown. You can see the paint is coming off one of the cylinders sitting out front.
Each set has a different set of cylinders. The ones I have out are all the same circumference, but different heights. Another set has growing circumference and growing height; another growing circumference and shrinking height; another is all the same height but growing circumference.
Enough of that for now. I need to get ready for the day. And tackle those den piles. :D
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