Week 5 | Building Cuisenaire Rod Complements

Lesson Objective:

Children are introduced to Cuisenaire Rod complements to give students a strong foundation in math structure of addition and subtraction.

Supplies

Small Group Set of Cuisenaire Rods
"The Missing Chick" By Valeri Gorbachev
Free Activity Page Below
An imagination

Lesson Plan

Begin with free play for 10-15 minutes. Ask the students about what they are creating and engage with their discoveries.

Break for story time and read, "The Missing Chick" By Valerie Gorbachev. This fun book pairs well with Missing Chicks Play mats in PDL's Math Task Cards and Play Mats for Module 1.

If you have a story felt board, you can prepare jumbo size felt rods to place onto the story felt board or you can also use Jumbo Cuisenaire Rods.

As you read each page, add a rod to create a complete staircase. You may want to create chicks to place on top of the staircase to be rescued. At the end of the story, offer students an opportunity to find the missing rods that will rescue the chicks. To read more about this Complement exercise, go HERE.

Story Discussion

After the lesson, ask the students what did they notice?

How many rods did you need to rescue the chicks?
What did you notice about the size of each rod?
What was your favorite part of the story?

Activity

Once the discussion is over, have the students recreate their own rescue story or use the Complement play mats from PDL's Math Task Cards and Play Mats for Module 1.

Have the students compare Complement staircases? Which play mat needed more rods? Which play mat had the tallest rods?

Math Journaling

Offer students the opportunity to draw their staircase complements on the free activity page below. Encourage them to include elements of the story. You may want to offer to read the story again while they are drawing.

Download FREE Activity