This is the first entry in our new segment “Did you know?”, highlighting facts about the Montessori philosophy, Montessori materials or curriculum, and Princeton Montessori School.  These short entries in the online newsletter are meant to give insight into components of your child’s experience that you otherwise would not know.

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Did you Know?

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The Pink Tower

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Did you know…… Montessori sensorial materials are designed to prepare a child’s understanding of math concepts with concrete materials.  Sensorial materials are indirect preparation for math materials.

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What it is:  A Montessori material introduced in the Early Childhood years (Primary Program), the Pink Tower consists of ten wooden cubes painted pink differing in length, breadth and height, increasing increments from 1 cm to 10 cm. The sizes grow progressively in the algebraic series of the third power.

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How it works:  This series of cubes are introduced to students individually by demonstration.  The child may then chose the work and manipulate the cubes by stacking them in order from largest to smallest. Most Montessori materials are self-correcting, as is The Pink Tower.

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Why it matters: Exploration with The Pink Tower develops a mathematical mind related to ratios and our base ten system while directly developing and refining the visual sense, their ability to discriminate size, and their muscular control of the hand.  This material also enriches vocabulary.  Children learn terms like biggest, big, smallest, small by comparing the cubes. It gives a concrete introduction to concepts a child draws on later from memory when introduced explicitly to the areas of mathematics.