Why the Pink Tower is Important

And why your child must not skip it

Photo: Nienhuis

Some parents want to skip the Pink Tower because it looks too simple, so they hope to push their children to a more difficult piece of material because they do not understand the value of the Pink Tower. For those of you on a limited budget, I completely understand this concern. So I wanted to share the details behind the Pink Tower.

The series of ten Pink Tower cubes helps children develop the ability to visually discriminate between sizes in three dimensions. Experimentation with the Pink Tower provides children with a deep understanding of concepts behind math, so that advanced math concepts will come easily and naturally to them later.

This preparation for the decimal system, geometry and volume is the reason that we use the authentic, full-sized Pink Tower.

Proper size: Ten wooden cubes painted pink (or in natural wood), increasing in increments from 1 cm³ to 1000 cm³.

For example, let’s envision the equation,

9² – 6² = ?

What about 100 – 3² = ?

The Pink Tower is the first step in preparing the foundation to understand the reality behind these numbers. The next steps will take you into the math material, you will see the bead cubes in the long bead chain in the Official Equipment Slideshow.

Let’s use the 1cm cubes to calculate the equations above,

Photo: Nienhis. You can find accurate 1cm square cubes online.

Make the Pink Tower 9-cube with the 1cm cubes.

Now make the 6-cube.

What happens when you remove the 6-cube equivalent from the 9-cube?

Repeat the same sequence with the second equation.

There is no reason your child needs to suffer through badly-written math textbooks when they are older! Once they work with this fundamental material, they will have a strong base upon which they will be able to learn difficult concepts on their own.

Pink Tower Second Presentation: Let your child build the tower using the 1cm cubes.

(Remember not to helicopter. Helicoptering is still popular in some circles, but never in Montessori. Never, never in Montessori.)

Happy calculating!