Montessori Education: "The Pink Tower"

Purpose: Build blocks of graduated 3 dimensional sizes in order to understand sequence and order.

Presentation: Spread a mat or rug on the floor,Dr. Montessori used a green carpet in her first school. Carefully scatter the cubes over the mat. Build a tower starting with the largest cube. Choose slowly and with deliberation.

Grasp each cube with one hand to get the muscular impression of the size. Build the tower from largest to smallest. The child will probably not be able to do this with the largest cube with one hand, it is fine to use both hands.However,  the other cubes should be able to be grasped this way.
(Again the connection- the hand is visually measuring the cubes for the mind to process)
Exercise: The child builds the tower after the demonstration.
Using the 3 period lesson introduce the concept of large and small, large, larger, largest, small, smaller, smallest. Also, if your child is ready, you can count the numbers 1 through 10 starting with the smallest cube (1) to the largest cube (10). The concrete difference between 1 and 10 is the first step in understanding addition. Later, when you teach your child to count backwards, use the tower again. Count backwards from 10 as the largest cube down to the smallest cube (1). This visual aid is invaluable to understanding subtraction.