Practical Mom: DIY Montessori Red Rods: & other size discrimination activities

'Red rods' is sensory Montessori learning material and can be made at home. The purpose is to have your child arrange them in a descending (or ascending) order to get a grasp on visual discrimination of various dimensions (you can read all about it in detail here)

Raw Material

I went to the same plywood shop as I had for the sandpaper letters. Why not, they entertained my 'funny' requests and even watched over my kid as he intently watched wood being cut and sawed! I showed them pictures first to save explaining. The thinnest square prism they had was 1"X1", these look chunky compared to the 1" diagonals I'd wanted, but I went along anyways. As per my request they cut up 10 rods with the lengths ranging from 10-100 cms, with 10 cms increments. All this took ten minutes and ₹300 / $5.

Then I painted them with crimson red acrylic paint. Considering these rods will be used only a few times, I didn't bother with a primer nor did I bother double coating.

First day with the rods, he began arranging in the descending order
but midway thought: making a train sounds like more fun!

Other size discrimination toys:

I also found this interesting “fun with sizes” puzzle, 16 set of pictures to be arranged in small medium & large order. It also includes 3 bear boards wherein the child has to arrange various items on papa, mama & baby bear boards according to size etc. It will wonderfully compliment the Goldilocks story book.

Some I made at home, which was used for sticking activity:

The forth Montessori equipment that I'm interested is cylinder blocks, cuz I'm sure my child will be very interested in them. They can't obv be made at home and they are steeply priced at ₹9,000. So anyone wanting to sell off theirs let me know!

[For my post on DIY Sandpaper Letters click here]

[For my post on DIY Color Tablets click here]

Until later! Stay in touch!