50 affective ways to use cuisenaire rods with children

"Never go to a class without rods."

Saying at Juan Uribe Ensino Afetivo

Emile-Georges Cuisenaire was a Belgian primary teacher, who invented the small wooden blocks that come in different sizes and colours, which are known today as cuisenaire rods. Emile-Georges called them réglettes and used them to help students learn Math in a  concrete way. Egyptian educator Caleb Gattegno named them cuisenaire rods and expanded their use to language learning through his famous Silent Way method.     

Cuisenaire rods are great resources for warm ups, storytelling, grammar, classroom management, and many more! They allow students and teachers to bring their originality and creativity making language very alive and concrete.  Students usually smile as soon as they see them coming out! 

Here below I share 50 different uses for cuisenaire rods with young learners and learners young at heart: 

Classroom management

1. Matching students or preparing a jigsaw: distribute rods and students that have the same color get together. You can them have new groups with one students of every color and these students share what they talked in the first group. 

2. Talking chips: you can also have a colour code in which each question on the board is assigned a color. Example: brown = how are you? , white = where do you live?, blue = what's your favorite sport?. We can also have students come up with the questions they will ask their classmates, as it's better that they do not know the answers to create authentic interest.  Once they ask the question they have to give their peer the rod they have just asked. Rotate students every 3 minutes to make sure they do not ask all their rods to the same person. 

3. Assigning characters: you can assign different characters of a story to different colours. Then each characters will give his ir her version of the story. You can also play scenarios in which characters talk to each other in pairs or small groups. 

Numbers, colours, and letters

4. Playing with numbers: students can either collect rods or make the actual numbers according to the numbers you dictate. You can even put simple math problems  or questions on the board for them to solve and write you the answer with the rods. Example: How many players are there in a soccer team? How many times did Brazil win the world cup? 

5. Creating a secret number code with rods: Using the scale you can pair one to the white rod and ten to the brown rod. Students can then answer questions using the rods as a "secret code". They can write their telephone numbers using this code. 

6. Playing with colours: students get rods according to questions or commands that they go giving each other. Example: What colors are there in the American flag? What colors are there in a kiwi? Make an apple! Make a lollipop! 

7. Guessing colours: students put their hands inside a bag and try to guess the colours of the rods according to their sizes. You can have the rods out for students who are younger and play just with four sizes with the very young learners. 

8. Playing domino with colors: here we play domino in a creative way. For you to add a piece you have to say something that has both colors. For example, black and yellow, you can say a banana, green and red a watermelon. Some combinations are harder: what is black and blue? 

9. Remembering things that start with a letter: students can work together to make with the rods things that start with a certain letter. You can time them during three minutes and then go over all their creations by having them write the words on the board. 

10. Spelling words: here you go spelling the letters of a word in the correct order and students go making the word with the rods. Their objective is to try to finish the word with the rods before you say the last letter. Example: S C H O - School! 

11. Solving the word challenge: you spell the letters of a word in a different order and once students have done all the letters they have to come out with the word. Example: R B D I - Bird! 

Imagination 

12. Kicking soccer penalties: now that the world cup is coming, you can make a goal and have a long rod as the goalkeeper and the student uses the white rod as a ball and one long rod as the kicker. You can also play bowling with rods. 

13. Remembering items in a list: here you can have the traditional chain "I went to the beach and I took a ....." and then the number of items goes growing and students have to remember all of them. Match the colours and length of the rods to the objects. 

14. Playing with pictures: here rods can be used to play with magazine pictures by creating new items that change the pictures. We can have a bowl of water for a dog, put somebody behind bars, make it rain on somebody, or give caps to children. This is great fun! 

15. Showing the refrigerator: students draw refrigerators using an A4 sheet and they use the rods to put what they have inside theirs. Then they can ask others if they have things. Great for practicing some and any with countable and uncountable. 

16. Exchanging treasures: ask them to get three rods to symbolize three precious things they like. You can model by giving examples such as the sun, cold lemonade, a videogame, my bicycle, etc. Then they go around showing what they have and can ask others to exchange things. In the end they report what they have. 

17. Playing domino with things: one rod is set on the table with a meaning, let's say dog for example. You have to use another rod to match a word to dog. House, bone, cat, collar, are some possibilities. Then the next person has to match a word that matches the second one and so on. Remember you have both sides of dog to play! 

18. Creating a city: here students create a perfect city with everything they would like to have. You can go giving them the language they need as long the need arises. You can make questions to guide them into making certain parts by asking questions such as "Where are children going to learn? " if there isn't a school. 

Storytelling

                                                                                                       

The sea, the beach, and trees

20. Recreating a scenario: similar to storytelling you can tell students to reenact scenes or the whole plots such as Alladin, Titanic, Mario Bros, or anything they really enjoyed watching. This is a great opportunity to have them rewrite the story. Here they can also be given a text or a piece of listening to recreate what they have understood. 

21. Creating an animation: nowadays with a telephone it is easy to make an animation by taking lots of pictures and putting these into programs such as flipagram. These animations are great to be shared with other groups and also with their parents. These animation can have characters or can show how to make something. 

Stress, poems, songs, and rhymes

22. Separating words in syllables:  a great exercise in pronunciation is dividing the words in syllables. First you model and show students how words can be divided in syllables and how the rods can be used to represent these. Then students can be given the words in cards and they make the rod combination or the rod combination is given and they have to find the written card with the word. 

23. Showing word stress: rods can be used to show which syllable is stronger in the word. You can have the rods standing and the stronger syllable is taller than the other ones. 

24. Showing sentence stress: similar to the last activity but here we have horizontal rods representing the words. Short rods can be used for pronouns and auxiliaries and longer ones for longer words. The stress can be marked by having two rods of the same color one on top of the other. Play with different meanings with different stress. A good sentence is "I didn't say you ate the cake that was in the refrigerator". 

Incy, wincy spider ...

25. Helping with a rhyme: you can tell a quick story with the characters in the song to help students identify them. Then while singing the song you can move the characters. Can you imagine "Five little monkeys"? What about "Incy wincy spider"?

26. Memorizing a poem: you can present some 5 or 6 key words that are in a poem by assigning each one of them to a rod and playing with them.  Students can them write a short poem with those words. Then you can work the poem's first line by inserting other rods for the other words and students repeat it. Then you do the second line and students repeat the first and then second line as you go pointing to the rods. Go like this until the end of the poem. 

27. Putting words in order while listening: similar to the poem activity, you can match words to rods. Students can create songs with those words. Then you play a song and students put the rods in the order the words appear in the song. Try "What a wonderful world" and have red for roses, blue for the sky, orange for children, and so on. 

Feelings: 

28. Describing feelings: students get a rod or some rods to say how they feel on that day. Students can also make analogies such as "I have a lot of energy from the sun"  when getting the yellow rod or "I am thirsty" when getting the blue rod. 

29. Ranking: students can put a specific topic according to how they like each item. They can put colors in order or days of the week (sunday would be the white one). 

30. Feeling words in a text: students are given a rod of each color and on an A4 sheet with a text they place the rods on top of words that follow a code you can create with them. Example: Red = new word, Blue = word I like , Black = hard word to write, Yellow = easy to remember, and so on. Students then compare their words. 

Vocabulary

31. Reviewing topics: somebody names a topic and each person creates an item with the rods. Items can be created by simply matching the colors to the word or by using many rods to make it the actual item. Students can then either say what they built or guess what others have made. The teacher can also give cards an each student makes what he/she has received. This is good for clothes, fruits, weather, sports, animals, etc. 

32. Naming parts: you can use rods to explain all the different parts involved in a topic. Later young learners have to build one making sure they include all the details. You can use rods for parts of the body, of a car, of a house, etc. 

33. Describing your bedroom/ house: you can model by describing your own house with all the rooms and pieces of furniture. Then you can show your routine by having a rod as you moving in the house. Then they can build their houses and show their routines in pairs or small groups. This is certainly a favorite of mine! 

34. Naming family members: making the family tree helps students understand the relationship among the different family members. You can go building the family tree gradually in many classes, adding three or four members per class. Have them build their own family trees and ask questions about the people in their families. Remember to include the pets! 

What is sticky doing here? 

35. Making stick figures: here we can make questions and students answer by making stick figures. Another possibility is for students to make the stick figures and others have to guess. Example: What do you love to do during weekends? What are you doing after class?

36. Creating needed props: give students a situation and ask them what they need. For instance, we can tell them they are serving dinner for their friends. What do they need? They will need a table, chairs, plates, glasses, food, etc. You can work here with substitution drills such as: I need  3 black rods  to make a table. 

37. Showing a scale: rods can be used to show a scale of something progressing or growing. It can be done easily with days of the week, months, and frequency adverbs. Another possibility is animal in size. We would have animals growing from ant to elephant. One can be even more creative by asking about the progression of a person moving. White = walking, red = riding a bike, green = riding a horse, black = taking a bus, blue = taking a spaceship. 

38. Telling the time: we can have students working on both digital and armed clocks to show different times. I also like to ask students about their favorite time of the day, what time they do certain things, and each students answers by showing their clocks. 

39. Presenting prepositions: you can model putting rods in different places in the room by using different prepositions. Then they can give each other commands where to put rods. 

Scaffolding for speaking

40. Talking about a routine/procedure: you can start by modelling 5 actions, one to every rod, you do every morning and showing their relation by using time markers such as first, then, right after, before, and finally. Once students know the meaning of every rod really well, you can shuffle them and laugh together at the crazy stories with situations as brushing your teeth before you get up! 

Where do you sit? 

41. Talking about your classmates:  I ask students to make the seating arrangement in their classroom at school and show me where they sit. Then I ask them to tell me everything they know about different classmates. This activity is great to practice does questions and to use third person S. 

42. Giving directions: after students make the perfect city you can have students give directions going from one place to another. Or you can give them directions and they have to move their character rod to get there. 

43. Creating mini dialogues: you can give students three or four sentences and they have to put these in order and make a dialogue. For example: not today, fine, bye, and sorry. They can use other rods for the other sentences. 

44. Modelling a small speech: you can model a small speech using one word per rod and students use the same structure to deliver their mini speech. This is great for those small particles that students usually forget. Make it maximum 4 lines. 

45. Stick puzzles: you can use rods to make the traditional logical puzzles in which you have to move some to get to an objective. You can find many of these at matchstick puzzles.

Grammar

46. Making a sentence: the teacher gives two or three words assigning each one of them to a rod and students have to put these in the right order and supply the missing pieces in order to make a sentence. Example: car have red. Students put the three pieces in order and supplies two more to form "I have a red car". 

47. Manipulating  auxiliaries for negatives and questions: you can use the rods to make affirmative sentences that are changed to become negatives and questions. Then you can give every two or three students a set of rods and they create the negative and question for the affirmatives you give them. Inserting auxiliaries and inverting these becomes very concrete with the rods.  

48. Making contractions: you can use the rods to make simple sentences without contractions and then you show how particles get contracted by putting the rods together. You can then dictate sentences and students manipulate these to get the contractions. 

49. Comparing their constructions: students can be back to back and they build something by following directions given by the teacher. When they are done they compare their constructions according to adjectives they come up with. Students can then give each other one instructions at a time. Example: S1: make a table S2: put a candle on top of it S3: there is a cat under the table and so on. 

50. Quantifying and describing: We can get a bunch of rods from a bag and describe what we have using many of them, most of them, none of them, and so on. 

Wow! So many ideas!

Wish you great moments with your students living language with cuisenaire rods! 

What about you? 

Do you use rods with your young learners? 

Do you use them in any different way in your classes? 

Send you a big hug, 

Juan

Did you like it? Share it! 

Thank you? 

Check also 50 affective ways to use flashcards with young learners! 

Routine cards foster confidence, dialogue, and awareness

“It’s not about having enough time, 

it’s about making enough time.” 

Rachael Bermingham

My mom prepared this card display! 

You probably have already seen routine cards in kindergarten walls. Well, that's exactly from I got the idea and adapted them to our English classes. Routine cards usually display planned activities and their sequence to let children know how their day will unfold. 

Routine cards are a great resource to teach young learners as they help students to understand time, reduce anxiety, ease transitions, promote dialogue about learning, raise learning awareness, and foster power sharing.

Routine cards can be created in many ways. At school we have the following ones: Relaxing, Warm up, Circle Time, Storytelling, Game, Puppet, Song, Art, Video, Writing, Reading, Grammar, Theater, Project, Cooking, Sports, Surprise, and Wrap up. 



Here below I will explore many of the great advantages I have found while working with routine cards. Come with me! 

Children are better able to understand time: it is hard for young learners to understand how time is lived. Some children enjoy the class so much that they ask every five minutes if we still have time left, some other children are anxious either waiting for a certain favourite activity to happen or for the class to end. In all these situations there is anxiety, which certainly hinders the concentration and learning from the whole group. By showing young learners the sequence of what is planned for the class, they can concretely "see" time passing and can know when and what is happening next. We usually turn every card down after we have done that activity.

Routine cards allow for smoother transitions between activities: I guess most teachers agree that it is hard for children to transition activities. I noticed that when students know what is happening next it is easier to progress in the sequence of activities. It is very important to prime them, by telling them that we still have some minutes to finish, as it allows them some time to accomplish the task and move on. It is important to have a sequence in which there is a growing level of interest after demanding activities, such as having a game after a writing activity. 



Attention: make sure you say that you are doing the writing and then the reading. If you say that you are playing the game if you do the writing, the game is being set as a reward for the writing and this implies indirectly and unconsciously that the writing part is the "bad" one. 


It is a great way to manage energy: there are naturally some activities that are more demanding and some others that are the students' favourites. Routine cards can help teachers and students by organizing "harder" activities first and the most pleasurable ones last. I like also look use routine cards to balance the sitting and standing activities as well as the open and guided ones. Another thing I do to raise students' concentration is to insert fun and relaxing quick activities that students are successful between longer ones. 

Listening to students is essential in affective learning!

Routine cards promote dialogue about learning: this is certainly one of the best benefits in my opinion. Having the class laid out in front of your class promotes listening and talking about either about what is going to happen or what has happened. In this precious moment we can listen to students impressions, likes, and dislikes. 


We can ask why they think in certain ways and try to understand how they value the activities and get their purpose. I usually briefly talk about why I think they are important. During these metalinguistic conversations students might ask you why you haven't done some of the cards and I think this is great to get ourselves out of our comfort zones!


Teachers become more aware of their teaching: If students do not actively tell you that they would like to have in their classes, you can clearly see the cards that you are usually having in class. Have you always been working with songs and haven't had any videos? What stops you from having a more balanced learning diet to your students? This can be a wake up call! As hard as it can be, it's explicitly revealed not only to you, but also to your students. Better work on a diversified menu before students ask you! And also let them ask as this  allows for being of service to the group!

Here we have pictures of the students doing the activities! 

Allows for personalization: one thing I still haven't done is to make the cards together with the students by either drawing or cutting from magazines. I believe this experience can be very fruitful as it not only personalizes their cards and learning, but also creates this moment to talk about all we can do during the course right at its beginning. It also creates a very unique product that can be shown to and even used by other groups. The group can in this process come up with cards that are different such as adventure, fantasy, jumping, or whatever comes through their minds! 





Last words about routine cards: 

Students enjoy the cards and they even ask for them when we do not take them. I get confused when I am not using the cards. 

Cards can be hard to use with some very young children and with older students. What I do with the very young ones is to put only four cards to get them used, even if they are not paying much attention. Regarding the older ones, I usually write on the board the activities and talk to them about what we are doing. I guess they might reject the actual flipping of the cards as they see it as something childish. I tell them why I do it and that in companies meetings have an agenda as well. 

Some very young students have stolen cards. The stolen ones are the activities that they do not like and the wrap up card. Do you know why the wrap up card? Because without it, the class will not finish! What a treat to listen to them saying it! 


What about you? 

Do you use routine cards with your young learners?
How do you manage time with your young learners?
Do you use any strategies to discuss what you are doing with your students?

Send you a big frug,

Juan

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Thank you!


EXTRA! 

Please read the comment Kim Horne has made below about how she uses routine cards with her young learners. Great ideas! 

These are the cards she uses with her students in Japan. Beautiful!


















Thank you SO much for sharing, Kim!

The ancient storytelling tradition of Kamishibai

                                             

Love at first sight happened when I saw a kindergarten teacher telling a kamishibai story in Tokyo in 2009. On the next day I went to a specialized bookstore in Ginza and lost myself in their kamishibai selection. Ended buying 10 lovely stories and the marvellous box you see in the picture. Quite pricey, but really worth it! 

But what is Kamishibai? 

Kamishibai is a form of storytelling that originated in Japanese Buddhist temples in the 12th century, where monks used pictures to teach moral lessons to illiterate audiences. The tradition lived long and after the great depression it was revived with many unemployed men riding their special bikes, which had a stage in the back, telling stories to village children throughout Japan. Kamishibai men earned money by selling traditional candy to children. The ones who bought candy could sit in the front!   

Why did I fall in love with kamishibai? 

Well, many reasons! The kamishibai pictures are very expressive, colourful, and yet very simple. This simplicity allows students to imagine the scenes and enjoy the suspense created when pictures are slowly slid to reveal the next one. The kamishibai box, with its doors and flap,  isolates the big and bold pictures magically getting the students attention. Even though the stories are written in the back of the cards, students and teachers can narrate and interpret them, adding a few details of their own. Being able to engage students and to also be part of such an ancient tradition is such a treat! 

Wouldn't you like to arrive at a school riding one bike like the one above? I'd love to!

Kamishibai is still a mistery and a novelty to many educators and even when I mention it to my Japanese friends, they usually tell me that it's something from a very distant past in their childhoods. The good news is that kamishibai thrived though the centuries and kamishibai stories are frequently told in schools, libraries, and community centers; not only in Japan, but also in many countries around the world. Here you can see me telling a kamishibai story to children at Paulo Schiesari Square in São Paulo, Brazil.

Before I tell students their first kamishibai story, I read them Kamishibai Man by Allen Say, which is a lovely story about the memories of a Kamishibai Man. I let them explore the scenery and imagine the emotions children must have felt.  I feel that giving students the background allows them to savour and keep the kamishibai experience alive! 

Some students have liked it so much that they have created their own kamishibai stories and presented them to other children at school!


I have selected a short kamishibai video for you to learn even more about this fascinating art: 

One problem I found with the stories that I bought in Japan was that the stories were written only in Japanese, which made me create my own stories using the pictures. I got really happy when I found out about Kamishibai for Kids, a store in New York City that makes kamishibai in both English and Japanese.

I am really excited that I am going to Japan next October and I will definitely look for Kamishibai storytellers. If you happen to know any, please let me know. I will share my kamishibai findings when I come back! 

What did you like the most about kamishibai? 

Had you heard about it before? 

I'd love to hear from you! 

Send you a big kamishibai hug,

Juan

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Inspiring blackboard quotes!

"Success is liking yourself, 

liking what you do, 

and  how you do it."

Maya Angelou  

You have just read the quote on the right corner.

How did you like it? Where did it take you?

This post is about these very special sentences that usually appear in the beginning of texts, posts, and movies to either guide us to specific thoughts or make us enter certain moods. Malu Sciamarelli recently wrote a lovely post about stories, which she opened with the beautiful quote below:

I wrote Malu thanking her for the touching post and also sharing that I love using quotes in my classes. I realized then that I should write about the power of quotes to make sense of my practice and also to share this secret trick with the world.

Why do I enjoy blackboard quotes so much? Well, I feel that's because they are a refined way of greeting and reaching students in the different moments and emotional states they live throughout a course.  Quotes can deliver very precise messages at the right time with a surprise and caring touch. But their usefulness does not end there as they come handy for vocabulary, language use, and grammar. Whether you want to welcome, entertain, support, or inspire, quotes can do a great job!

I particularly like writing inspirational quotes on the right corner of the blackboard, as a way of receiving students when they come into the classroom and leaving it to them to do their own thinking.  So far, I have never manipulate quotes or discussed them in any specific activities as I like the magic of just leaving them there. Sometimes  students copy or reading them aloud, many times I even forget I wrote them. I use quotes as nutritional seeds with the hope that they will energize and bring some wisdom to students. Below I share a sequence of favorite quotes and some moments in which they can be used.  

                   We can start by giving meaning to learning a foreign language: 

Quotes can be used to show a process:

We can  students who are suffering and struggling in their learning: 

Expected social behavior can be presented and reinforced:

 We can play with meaning by changing the order of words:

Single words can also be used with the same function. Check this word play! 

What about these quotes for a day students are finishing a project or taking a test?

I believe there are endless ways to use quotes in class. Some that come to my mind now are matching, discussing, classifying, ranking, guessing, completing with their own words, guessing/ matching who said them, and inviting students to bring their favorite ones. Even so, I still prefer leaving their silent magic in the air.

Here I invite you to check out my 500+ quotes Affective Quotes Pinterest board. 

Well, shouldn't we end with a quote? Here it is!

Have you ever used quotes in your classes?
Do you have a special favorite one?
I'd love to hear from you!

Send you a big frog-hug,

Juan

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Dreaming about Language Learning with Playmobil

I just could not resist getting the school playmobil set on sale last week. I felt I simply needed to have it, can not explain why. Yes, I bought myself Playmobil for Christmas, as my wife refused to buy playmobil to her 38-year old husband, despite my childish persistence. 

Pure delight was little to express my feelings and gratitude when I unwrapped my big Christmas package and saw that my Santa wife had given me an even bigger playmobil puppet theater set with its own carry case! What a treat!

I am probably not the only adult out there who collects and sometimes plays with childhood toys. Every collector has his or her own very special reasons for having their own private treasure. Here I share why Playmobil is dear and near to my heart and how it is part and parcel of my affective language learning world. 

Playmobil brings me very good memories. Memories of times in which I lived my creativity in an exciting and sheltered environment when I played on my own, with my sister, and with a few close friends. As a child, I particularly liked playing on my own making mountains, sacred caves, and deadly cliffs with sheets, blankets, and a chair. I also remember getting domino pieces and incorporating these in the play by making new vehicles, traps, and pyramids. In this very intimate playing of my own, I lived, relived, and experimented with language in a myriad of social roles, situations, and outcomes. More than using their voices, I became the characters and felt their unique emotions and perspectives. 

I was probably 8 or 9 when I had the unusual dream of having an English teacher coming to my bedroom, sitting on the floor, and playing with me and my playmobil in English. My wish was learning in English this very rich language of my own play, in which my hands, head, and heart were totally immersed in. Not only did I want to learn the language, but I also felt the urge to play with it, by saying it soft and loud, whispering it in many ways, and shouting it with funny voices over and over. In this language play dream, I wished I could savour the characters and their lives through the words of a new foreign language.

In hindsight, I can say that during play I must have lived what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls the experience of flow, which is considered to be the  ultimate experience in harnessing emotions to perform and learn. In flow, one is fully immersed, involved, and focused in the activity, through which our motivation and enjoyment reach their peak, making us even lose track of time and our surroundings due to the sheer excitement, increased concentration, and intrinsic pleasure. I think that these early flow experiences with my playmobil certainly contributed to my later interest in connecting young learners' interests, emotions, and play to language learning.

I was aware of this childhood dream, talked about it when asked about the beginning of my work, and considered a neat memory. That was until the day I saw myself on the floor with Felipe, a very talented 6-year old student, playing with his pirate playmobil. In our learning play, I responded to his linguistic demand by giving him the words he needed to express himself and the characters in English. I marvelled at his ability and creativity in inserting the new words in his sentences and how he was living his real language at that precise moment.  There sitting on the floor of Felipe's bedroom, it all came to me in one powerful insight. I was fullfiling a childhood dream.

But what do we do when we notice we are living a dream? Well, I enjoyed for some good 20 minutes and then I told young Felipe about how I wished that would have happened to me as a kid. By sharing it, I was able to include him in that delicious moment I was savoring.

I'm fortunate to be able to relive all these moments and make sense of my path as a player, student, teacher, and dreamer. For now, I’m preparing and saving my collection for my future children and grandchildren to play their dreams.

Well, I guess that’s why I like playmobil so much.

What about you?
Do you have childhood play experiences that have influenced your beliefs and your teaching?


Send you a frog-hug,

Juan


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