Sensorial: The Pink Tower
The pink tower was designed by Maria Montessori herself and is a favourite in Montessori classrooms. It consists of 10 wooden cubes, ranging in size from 1 cubic centimetre to 10 cubic centimetres. The cubes are the same colour, texture and shape so that children are able to focus on one important quality of the material – size!
Have a look at the below tutorial by My Montessori Works to see how the lesson is applied.
The pink tower teaches children sizing, dimension and order.
You’ll notice that the presentation is quite long but it is purposefully so: as children transfer each cube one by one (from smallest to largest) to the mat, they are able to feel the weight and progression of its size, which helps them understand the concepts at play.
The lesson is initially presented without language. Using their visual perception, children will be able to self-correct if, initially, they place the cubes out of order – and it is important to allow them the space to figure it out.
When children have mastered the building the pink tower, it’s time to introduce a language component in the form of a 3-part lesson. In this lesson, children will be introduced to the concepts of size through the language of “big”, “bigger” and “biggest”.
The first part: the size is named by the teacher. The second part: the child identifies the correct block according to its size. The third part: the child uses language to identify the correct block according to its size.
The concepts taught through interactions with the pink tower can be applied at home with other materials – staking blocks of different sizes, for example. Get creative and use what you have around you. You’ll enjoy seeing your child grow more independent and confident as he becomes comfortable with the pink tower principles.
If you’d like further information about this tutorial, feel free to contact us at info@saintandrewsmontessori.com. We’re happy to answer any questions.
