Number Rods

Direct aim. To learn the names of the quantities one to ten and their sequence, with each quantity held as a single whole.

Indirect aims, the ones you will not see at once

Ten rods: 10, 20, 30 and so on up to 100 cm long, each divided into 10 cm sections painted red and blue in turn. Most sets begin every rod with red, so the reds line up at one end.

Montessori gave the cross-section as 3 cm square in 1912 and 4 cm in 1914. Current sets vary; any section works if every rod shares it.

Laid end to end, the ten rods measure 5.5 m. Built as a stair they need a rug at least 1.2 m long.

A set of numeral cards 1 to 10, or sandpaper numerals, kept aside for the later lesson that matches figures to rods.

1. 1A child usually builds the plain red rods (the long stair) in Sensorial before this lesson. Unroll a long rug and carry the rods one at a time, holding the longer rods at both ends.Silent Carry the long rods level, one hand at each end.
2. 2Arrange the rods in a stair, longest to shortest, with the red ends aligned on the left.Silent Line up the red ends with care; the stair is the first thing the child reads.
3. 3Take the 1 rod and place it in front of the child. "This is one." Take the 2 rod and count its segments, touching each: "One, two. This is two." Do the same with the 3 rod.Say "This is one." Then count aloud, touching each section: "One, two. This is two."
4. 4Second period, recognition: "Show me two. Put three by the window. Give me one."Say "Give me two." "Put three by the window." Mix the order.
5. 5Third period, recall: point to a rod and ask "How many is this?"Say "How many is this?" Then count it together, as Montessori did: "One, two, three."
6. 6In later sessions, continue in groups of three until all ten rods are named.Silent Silent until the next session. Montessori added one or two rods at a time, as the child was ready.

The 10 rod, a full meter, about as tall as a four-year-old.

Laying the 1 after the 9 and finding it exactly as long as the 10.

Turning the 5 end over end along the 10: two fives make ten.

The stripes lining up across the stair when every red end is on the same side.

Counting the segments. If a rod is named wrongly, counting it shows the true quantity, and in the stair a misplaced rod breaks the steps.

Montessori’s name for this check is the control of error.

• Matching numeral cards 1 to 10 to the rods
• Making ten by combining rods: 9 and 1, 8 and 2, 7 and 3
• Taking the tens apart again: 10 less 4 is 6, and so on, which is subtraction
• Teens: the 10 rod with the 6 rod after it is sixteen, matched to a 10 card with a 6 laid over the zero
• Simple addition and subtraction with the rods

Variations

• Numeral cards 1 to 10PDF, 1 page, 101 KBTen cards with large numerals, sized to lay at the end of each rod for the matching lesson.
• Table-top number rods to cut outPDF, 1 page, 109 KBAll ten rods at one fifth of real size, in 2 cm sections of red and blue, laid out in the pairs that make ten. Glue the sheet to card and cut.
• Number rods work sheet: quantity to numeralPDF, 2 pages, 120 KBTwo pages for after the rods are named: match each drawn rod to its numeral, then count the sections and write the number.

Free to print for your family, no email needed. Print at 100%, not “fit to page”, so the drawings keep their scale. Every printable on the site is listed on the printables page.

Ready for the first presentation

Ready for the next lesson

A 1 m rod swung at child height reaches faces. Carry rods level, close to the body, and keep younger siblings off the rug.

Rods left on the floor trip people. They go back on the shelf before the next work comes out.

We have not bought the paid homeschool curricula, so they are not listed here.

1. Maria Montessori, Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook (1914)

   Arithmetic, Fig. 40

   For number, the long rods are divided into ten-centimeter spaces colored alternately red and blue, and the first three rods are taught in three periods: "This is one", "Give me two", "What is this?".

   Arithmetic

   A rod is one object made of equal parts that can be counted, so adding 8 and 2 means placing two rods together, while eight marbles and two marbles leave the child to hold the group of eight together in his mind.

   Laying rod 1 beside 9, 2 beside 8, 3 beside 7 and 4 beside 6 makes rods all as long as the longest; putting them back is a series of subtractions.

   Sandpaper figures from one to nine are touched in the direction of writing and then placed on the corresponding rods arranged in gradation.

2. Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method (1912)

   Chapter XIII, Education of the Sense of Vision

   Ten rods with faces of 3 centimetres, the first a metre long and the last a decimetre, each decimetre painted alternately red or blue, arranged like organ pipes.

   Chapter XX, Sequence of Exercises

   The children are attracted by the long stair but make the most errors with it, and arrange it perfectly only after the cubes and prisms.

   Chapter XIX, Addition and Subtraction From One to Twenty

   Five, turned end over end along ten, shows that two times five makes ten.

   Chapter XIX, Lessons on Decimals

   Rod 10 with rod 6 placed after it makes sixteen, shown with a card of 10 and a card of 6 laid over its zero.

3. Maria Montessori, The Montessori Elementary Material (1917)

   Part III, Numbers 1 to 10

   The rods of the long stair are too few and too large for a room full of children, so smaller bead bars of 1 to 10 were prepared on the same principle.

Lesson text and the scope and sequence are CC BY 4.0: reuse them with credit to Owen Wren, Homeschool Montessori, and a link. Photos and illustrations are all rights reserved. The plates from Montessori's 1912 and 1914 books are public domain and not ours. Terms.