Isolation of a single quality30–33 months
Pink Tower
Ten pink cubes from 1cm to 10cm, identical in every way except size. The most recognisable material in Montessori.
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- Offer it around
- 30–33 months
- Montessori principle
- Isolation of a single quality
- What you may see
- Orders ten objects by size
- Judges relative size by eye before lifting
- Carries one item at a time with care
Ten cubes, all the same pink, the same smooth beech, the same finish. The only thing that differs is size, and it differs on a strict cube progression from one centimetre to ten. Everything about the design is arranged so that a child building the tower has nothing to attend to except how big each cube is relative to the next.
That is the entire idea, and it is why the pink tower has become the symbol of the method. The child is not being taught 'big and small' as vocabulary; they are handling ten objects whose sizes stand in exact mathematical relation, and they are noticing the relation through their hands and eyes long before they could describe it. The largest cube weighs a thousand times the smallest, which the child feels directly.
Build it on a floor mat rather than a table, so the child walks back and forth fetching one cube at a time and views the tower from all sides. The classic error is to place a cube out of order, and the classic response is to say nothing — a tower with a bulge in it is visible, and the child will see it. If they do not see it yet, they are not ready, and the material can wait a few weeks.
What to look for
- Accurate 1cm–10cm graduation
- Solid beech, uniform colour and finish
- Smooth faces so the cubes sit flush
- A stand or box for storage
Not this
Multi-coloured 'rainbow tower' versions. Varying the colour as well as the size breaks the isolation the material depends on.
Safety
The 1cm cube is a choking hazard — keep this as supervised work and count the cubes back in.
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Also for 2–3 years
The rest of this stage
- Care of self and environmentWashing StationA basin, a jug, a brush and a cloth on a tray — the full washing cycle, at a scale a two-year-old can run alone.24–27 months
- Visual discriminationMulti-Shape PuzzleFive geometric shapes on one board — the step up from single shape puzzles, once those have become easy.24–27 months
- Control of errorKnobbed CylindersGraded cylinders that fit one set of sockets and only one — the first of the classic sensorial materials.24–27 months
- Movement as the driver of developmentBalance BikeNo pedals, no stabilisers — feet on the ground, so the child learns balance first and everything else follows.27–30 months
- Care of the environmentChild-Size Garden ToolsA steel-headed spade, rake and hoe with wooden handles, scaled down but not made of plastic.27–30 months
- The complete work cycleTable Washing SetThe classic Montessori table washing work: a defined sequence of a dozen steps, run start to finish by the child.27–30 months
- Refinement of the visual senseColour TabletsPaired tablets in the three primary colours — the first box, and the beginning of matching by a single quality.30–33 months
- Concrete before abstractNumber RodsTen rods in alternating red and blue segments, so that 'seven' is a thing you can pick up and feel the weight of.30–33 months
- Learning through the sensesSandpaper LettersLetters cut in sandpaper and mounted on boards, traced with two fingers while saying the sound — not the name.33–36 months
- Writing before readingMovable AlphabetLoose letters in a compartmented box, so a child can build words with sounds long before their hand can form them.33–36 months
- Isolation of a single qualityBrown StairTen prisms of identical length that vary only in thickness — the pink tower's companion, isolating breadth instead of size.33–36 months