Our Current Cylinder Storage
Our cylinder blocks are now on the shelves in our family room, and our knobless cylinders are located in a basket nearby.
I have written about this early sensorial work in the past, and you can find a ton of lessons and videos for this work available online and on YouTube.
This material was a gifted to us💕 The cylinders are expensive to purchase, so as a homeschooler there are always choices to be made as to what you feel your children will love and benefit from. I can tell you that our children loved this material.
There are many materials on the market (perhaps that you already own), that can serve the vast majority of the purpose for this material. So if it isn't affordable or something you can make, or have someone else make then no worries.
Why do we love this material?
Both of our children have a tremendous love of building and creating, so this material was extremely appealing to them.
They are both fans of puzzles and design work, so again loved it for this reason.
As with many Montessori materials, all block sets contain 10 cylinders and are graded in various dimensions linking this material to the mathematics curriculum - referencing the base 10 system.
This is a valuable opportunity for your child to physically grade and evaluate material, in terms of size weight. As always another great opportunity to introduce new vocabulary, memory, and fine motor refinement.
Later this is a fantastic material for measurement lessons!
A few of our other design favorites...
Ava was ready to work with all four blocks, at around three and a half years of age. She loved this material!
For those of you who may not know, the knobs are approximately the size of a pencil and were designed to help your child develop their pincer grasp/pencil grip for future writing preparation.
Ava was 5yrs in this image, working with the knobless cylinders. We have many extension design cards that we found online, but for the most part the kids design their own.
Want to make your own?
Here is a cut list help out!
Such an exciting material!
Please let me know if you make these!!
Thanks! Just in time. Can you please add the dimensions of the side curves on the blocks? Thanks so much
ReplyDeleteAwesome!! The curve on the end of the blocks (for those who are unaware is to aid with carrying the blocks to the carpet) is approx 5mm in depth. It is a gentle even curve on either end of each block (again for those may no know). Good luck with the project!!
DeleteYes exactly why we wanted to incorporate it! Thanks
DeleteIs there a typo for block 3? Is the diameter only 10 or should it be 25?
ReplyDeleteYes!!! I have made the edit! Thank you for letting me know :)
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