Montessori at home Sensorial: Knobless Cylinders
This activity is great to start at around 4.5 years of age, but I have worked with these with my son since he was 3.5 years of age.
There are four boxes with four cylinders in each.
Red: They have the same height, but have different circumferences.
Yellow: Different circumference, different heights, from tallest and widest to shortest and smallest.
Green: Different circumference and different heights. Wider to thinner, shortest to tallest.
Blue: Same circumference, different heights.
Presentation:
Start with the red box. Open it, take all cylinders out and close the box.
Find the thickest cylinder and start a line on the left side.
Find the next thickest and place it to the right of the first cylinder.
Continue grading all cylinders until all 10 are lined up correctly.
Mix up all the cylinders and have the child do the activity again on his/her own.
Open the red box, place all cylinders back in the box and close it again.
Work with one box at a time in this order: red, green, yellow and blue.
Extension: red and green boxes together
– Grade the red box and then the green box.
Extension 2: red and yellow boxes together
Extension 3: green and yellow boxes
Extension 4: red and blue boxes
Extension 5: green and blue boxes
Extension 6: yellow and blue boxes
Extension 7: grade three boxes together
Extension 8: grade all four boxes together
For more extensions, CLICK HERE.
Christina K. says
December 7, 2016 at 10:42 pmAre all knobless cylinders the same? By that I mean do the same colors always correspond to a certain attribute? I saw some on a montessori tools website and they seemed different. I do not want to buy a set that will just cause confusion later on or challenges becuase they dont correspond to other Montesorri material. Thank you!
Tanya says
December 12, 2016 at 7:55 pmNo. Not all knobless cylinders are the same. They differ in height and circumference. 😉
Amanda says
February 24, 2018 at 5:58 pmWhere did you get your knob less cylinders?