- Measuring lengths of Cuisenaire rods and pattern blocks using a Cuisenaire rod track
Earlier this week, I found some old notes I had written about playing with pattern blocks and Cuisenaire rods when Ben was about seven years old. We had been stacking the pattern blocks into towers and measuring them with the Cuisenaire rods. While doing this, we made some interesting comparisons. Here’s what I wrote:
“While measuring the pattern blocks, we noticed that they’re 1 cm thick, just like the Cuisenaire rods, and therefore can be measured using the rods or a meter stick. The lengths of the pattern block sides are either 2 1/2 cm or 5 cm long, depending on the shape. The sides of the orange squares and green triangles are 2 1/2 cm long, but one side of the red trapezoid is 5 cm long.”
- Stacking and lining up rods and blocks to measure and compare them
I had forgotten all about these details until now. I’m glad I had those notes to remind myself about the fun we had exploring these materials and making these observations.
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