Educational aids: Gyenes cubes and Kuisener sticks

Parents at all times paid great attention to toys not of an entertaining nature, but developing. From a very early age it is important to deal with a child: to teach him to distinguish colors, seasons, count objects, improve memory, attention. Fortunately, there are a huge number of developmental aids today that combine learning and play. In this article, we consider Gyenes cubes and a set of Kuyzener sticks.

gies cubes




Why are these developmental techniques so useful?

“I am a humanist,” one can often hear from already grown-up people who are not strong in mathematics. Often the problem lies not in abilities, but in the fact that they were little acquainted with this science at an early age. Mathematics may well be an interesting, exciting, and fun activity.

Hungarian teacher Zoltan Pal Dyenesh and Belgian teacher George Kuyzener dispelled the stereotype of people-technicians and humanities by developing their own methods of early learning. They are a set of logical blocks that allow you to creatively study mathematical science, develop attention and logical abilities.

Gyenesh’s cubes and Kuiser’s blocks help kids in a playful way get acquainted with colors, geometric shapes, their sizes, understand what “each”, “in two”, which is more or less. These developmental aids will captivate small fidgets and even interest adults.





What age are these techniques suitable for?

Usually these sets are used for games with children from two or seven years old. But it all depends on the development of the child. If you think the baby is very smart, then you can try to offer these blocks a year. For various reasons, there are delays in development, then these sets are suitable for a child and eight to nine years of age.

What do the cubes develop?

Gyenesh logic cubes in an accessible and visual form familiarize children with the colors, shapes, sizes, thickness of objects, basic knowledge of mathematics and the basics of computer science. The child will learn all this by playing and performing various manipulations with blocks: laying out, splitting, rebuilding according to a given pattern, etc.

DIY cubes




The set develops:

  • creative potential;
  • logical thinking;
  • mental operations (classification, comparison, analysis, generalization);
  • cognitive processes (sensation, perception, attention, memory, imagination);
  • fine motor skills.

What is included in the set with cubes

Dyenesh developed his manual so that it does not have a single identical subject. All of them vary in shape, size, thickness and color.

Gyenes cubes have:

  • four shapes (circles, squares, triangles and rectangles);
  • two sizes (small and large);
  • two types of thickness (thin and thick);
  • Three colors (blue, red and yellow).

Dice games for the little ones

After buying such a set, you should not immediately load with various tasks of your baby. Let him get to know the cubes well: see them, touch them, play with them the way he wants. At an early age, children love tactile contact with objects.





After meeting you can proceed to the next step - the study of the properties of the cubes. The first lessons can be based on the concepts of “same” and “not like that”.

Game "Find a figure"

Ask the baby to find the same cubes. For example: “Please choose figures of the same color as this (red).” Be sure to pronounce the color and point to the cubes. For young children, this is important. Ask about other properties. For example, about the form: "What is the name of this cube?" By the same principle, study other Gyonesh cubes. The photo shows very well how you can visually study the shape of a circle with children.

Dyenesh cubes quests




Similarly introduce the concept of "not like that." For example: “Find all the cubes that are not the same size as this.”

The game "What's in the pouch?"

Put several pieces in a bag. Ask the child, without peeping, to touch to determine the size, shape or thickness of the cube.

Memory game

Lay different cubes in front of the baby, let him carefully examine them. Have your child turn away. Change the sequence, add or remove one shape. Have your baby find what has changed.

Dyenesh cubes: tasks for older children

The game "Continue"

An adult puts several cubes with the same characteristic and asks the child to make a second row according to the model. For example, for the sign we take the color: blue square, red circle, yellow triangle. The kid should keep this sequence of colors and lay out a row. For example: blue triangle, red square, yellow circle.

The game of Hide and Seek

Lay out several cubes in front of the baby and say that under one of them a kitten hid (a picture with his image). You can find him by asking leading questions. For example: “Is it a square cube?”, “Is it a yellow cube?” Give the baby an example to make it clearer.

gyenes cubes reviews




Game "Sort"

From an early age it is useful to teach your baby to clean. How? Usually the child is asked to help put the toys in place. This can be successfully used when after the lesson you need to remove the Dyenesh cubes. Parents' reviews say that children for the joy of helping adults, if taught in time for this.

Share the work with the baby, say that let him collect all the yellow and small cubes, and you all the rest.

The developing tasks of the Kuisener sticks

Kuiziner sticks are a multifunctional mathematical tool. With it, in the game, the child learns to understand the numerical sequence, the concepts of “more and less”, “right and left”, “longer and shorter”, “higher and lower”, “between”, “through one” and so on.

Kuiser’s set has several names: “colored numbers”, “numbers in color”, “colored rulers”, “colored sticks”.

This toolkit aims to develop:

  • visual and effective thinking;
  • cognitive activity;
  • perceptions;
  • attention;
  • design abilities;
  • spatial orientation;
  • creativity
  • fantasies and imaginations;
  • fine motor skills.

This set only supplements the Gyenes cubes for children and allows you to comprehensively approach the study of the foundations of mathematics.

logical cubes of dyenesh




What are the Kuesener sticks made of?

The set includes tetrahedral sticks, which differ in size and color. They are noteworthy in that the blocks of different lengths have their own color and numerical value. That is, the larger the stick, the larger the number it indicates.

Kuiser sets differ in color, number of sticks and the material from which they are made. Today, plastic and wooden blocks are on sale.

The most popular is a simplified set of 116 elements. It includes sticks:

  • white - 25 pieces;
  • pink - 20 pieces;
  • blue - 16 pieces;
  • red - 12 pieces;
  • yellow - 10 pieces;
  • violet - 9 pieces;
  • black - 8 pieces;
  • maroon - 7 pieces;
  • blue - 5 pieces;
  • orange - 4 pieces.

White color corresponds to the number “one”, yellow - “two” and so on.

Introducing the baby with chopsticks

It was described above how to study Gyenesh cubes in the first lesson with a child. For young children, these tips can and should also be used when meeting with Kuyzener's wands.

Lay out “colored rulers” in front of the child. Let him examine them and touch them. You can tell the kid about the sticks, what size and color they are. Show the shortest block and ask to find the same as yours. Do the same with the longest stick.

Spread houses, paths, furniture, geometric shapes with your baby. Suggest calling the colors that were used in the construction of the figure.

What you can play with Kuisener's wands after meeting

The game "Fold the figure"

Offer the baby to build various shapes from the sticks: a square, a triangle, etc. When it works out well, complicate the task a bit. For example, ask to lay out two blue squares, then three rectangles (cyan, white and yellow). Ask to compare the sizes of each element.

Dyenesh cubes photo




Memory game

Dyenesh's cubes and Kyuizener’s sticks are similar in terms of the tasks they perform, so you can sometimes use the same games with these sets. For example, an exercise to develop memory and attention.

Lay out a series of sticks in front of the baby, ask them to look at them well and try to remember how they lie. Transfer or remove one block, and then ask the child what has changed.

Learning to Measure Games

For example, give your child the task of finding a stick that is longer than black, but shorter than blue. Invite the baby to measure the table with one block or touch to find three identical elements. Ask to put out of the sticks a track that will be equal to the length of the orange stick. Such measurement games can be invented by yourself or with your baby.

You can also print different patterns of drawings from Quiziner's wands and fill them out with the baby. At the end of the work, ask about the length of the used sticks.

Recommendations for parents when using developing cubes and sticks

  • Do not leave the child alone to play with the developmental aid “Cubes of Gyenes” or “Sticks of Quizener”. A parent is the main assistant in learning something new.
  • Praise success more often, encourage and stimulate interest in activities.
  • Do not scold for failures. If the baby is unable to complete some task, return to him later, show for yourself how you would do it.
  • Use the principle of "from simple to complex." Gradually make the tasks more difficult and do not forget to return to the already completed exercises. The experience gained by the child should not be a “dead weight”.
  • Create tasks yourself and connect a child to this.
  • Imagine. Fold with the kid from the blocks of a fairy-tale character and make up a story about him.

Dyenesh cubes for little




Is it possible to make educational materials ourselves?

It is quite possible to make Kuisener sticks and Gyenes cubes with your own hands.

Here you can go in two ways: make a paper version or use wooden blanks. Well, if there are old cubes, this greatly simplifies the task. Just paint them in the right colors. If not, you have to cut the blocks yourself. The simpler option is to craft from dense color cardboard and paste over with tape for reliability. You can stick magnets on one side of the cubes or sticks to make playing with them even more convenient.

Games with developmental aids will help the child learn something new and fall in love with mathematical science, which, unfortunately, is not easy for everyone. Also, colored sticks and logic blocks are a great option for family activities or spending time on a children's birthday, when all the usual activities have become boring for young guests.




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