Tim Seldin & Paul Epstein Ph.D. An Education for Life

(Above and right) The Pink Tower
A GUIDED TOUR OF MONTESSORI CLASSROOMS — SENSORIAL EXERCISES
The Pink Tower is one of the Sensorial materials
that children enjoy working with early in their
Montessori experience. The Pink Tower, or
“Tower of Cubes,” is composed of a graduated
series of ten wooden cubes. The largest cube
has a square section of 10 centimeters per side
and is 10 centimeters high. Thus, it measures
10 x 10 x 10 centimeters. The square section
and height of each of the succeeding cubes
decreases by 1 centimeter down to the smallest
cube which measures 1 x 1 x 1 centimeter.
Children carefully carry the Tower, cube by
cube, to the little rug that defines their work
area. They carry each cube comfortably at waist
height as they take the cubes and place them in
random order upon the carpet.
As they manipulate the cubes and carry
them across the room, the children get a very
strong impression of size and weight. When all
the cubes have been carried to the rug, the
child looks for the largest one and begins to
build the Tower, one cube at a time. At each
step, he looks through the cubes that have not
yet been added to the Tower to find the largest.
As each is placed on the Tower, the child controls
his movements to place the cube gently
down right in the center of the larger cube on
which it is rested. Once the Tower has been
constructed, the child carefully takes it down
and either begins again or returns the cubes,
one by one, to their proper place on the shelf.
Some people have heard that in Montessori, children are taught that there is only one way to work with each material. In truth, the children
explore and discover all sorts of creative ways to work with them. For example, students will construct the Tower horizontally, or line up two
edges to create a vertical stairway. The children will also build the Pink Tower in various combinations with the Brown Stair (described
on page 68), along with some of the other Sensorial materials.
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