Wooden Counting Sticks - 100-Piece Maths Rods Set

Tip the set onto a tray and the first game invents itself: sorting the sticks into little piles, then counting each pile aloud while touching every stick. That simple gesture, one stick for one word, is the heart of learning to count, and it is much easier with an object in the hand than with a picture on a page.

Learning to count with a counting stick

Begin with small quantities. Lay out three sticks, ask your child to make a pile of three next to yours, then check together by matching them in pairs. When numbers up to ten feel secure, slip a hair elastic around ten sticks to make a bundle: two bundles and four loose sticks is twenty-four, and the idea of tens suddenly makes sense.

From wooden counting sticks to first sums and shapes

Put two sticks on the left, three on the right, push them together and count again: that is addition, done with the hands. Taking a few away shows subtraction just as clearly. The same rods also draw shapes on the table, three for a triangle, four for a square, or a row of tally marks with every fifth stick laid across the group.

Keep the set in a small box or jar on a low shelf, next to the other Montessori educational toys, so your child can take it out alone and put every stick back after the game. Counting them back into the box is a good exercise in itself.

Details

• Contents: 100 wooden sticks
• Dimensions of each stick: 7.5 cm x 3 mm diameter
• Weight: 50 g
• Age: from 3 years
• 2-year guarantee on all products

Warning: Not suitable for children under 36 months.