Children love the Pink Tower — it’s fun and immensely satisfying for them to complete the tall tower by stacking the cubes on top of each other. But we know the material provides them with much more than enjoyment. As they choose the correct cube to stack, the child is practicing a number of cognitive and physical skills. 

He is practicing fine motor skills as he carefully picks up the smallest cube with his fingers and then stretches his hands to pick up the largest of cubes. He is also working on gross motor skills as he moves and stacks the cubes. He is developing his visual discrimination as he considers the size of each cube, his tactile sense as he feels the smooths sides of the cubes, his baric sense as he feels the different weights of the cubes, and his kinesthetic or muscular sense as he positions his body to stack the cubes. He is also building his ability to discriminate as he judges the length, width, and height of the cubes. He is learning to grade and understand sequence and order. 

All of this hands-on work also allows him to experience the concept of the natural numbers from 1 to 10 (there are ten cubes in the Pink Tower), the decimal system, and the relationship between cubing and volume, and prepares him for future work in geometry. All that learning in ten pink cubes! Montessori is truly remarkable!

 Learn more about the Pink Tower and other Montessori math materials by purchasing NAMC’s Montessori Early Childhood Curriculum or enroll in our Montessori Diploma Program!

— NAMC Staff