114 ◆ Modeling Thinking
Cuisenaire® Rods (bring them back . . . search the
basements and closets)
Cuisenaire® rods^1 are the forgotten manipulative. They are great to teach the
basic operations as well as fractions. Every school over 25 years old has
them hidden somewhere deep in a closet because they used to be as ubiq-
uitous as the teddy bears are today. Here is an example (see Figure 7.7).
Figure 7.7
Mr. Tom was cutting wood to make some shelves. He had a piece of wood
that was 10 feet long. He wanted to make shelves that were 2 feet long each.
How many shelves can he make out of that 10-foot piece of wood?- Model this problem with the Cuisenaire® rods.
- Sketch a picture of your model.
- Write an equation to solve the problem.
Place value blocks
Place value blocks should be used frequently so that students understand
the structure of numbers (see Figure 7.8). Have students solve different
types of problems with them. Remember the original theory said that
students should generate a number, then build the model, draw a picture
of the model and then do the calculations so that they could see the com-
plete cycle. So for example, you might have a problem like: Grandma
planted a garden that was 11 feet by 12 feet. She is going to divide it into 4