Cuisenaire rods are rods used in elementary school and are typically used to demonstrate fractions. The rods (reglettes in the original French) are named after their inventor, Georges Cuisenaire (1891-1976), a Belgian primary school teacher, who published a booklet on their use in 1952 called 'Les nombres en couleurs'.
In the system, there are 10 rods measuring 1cm to 10cm. Rods of equal length are assigned the same colour. Most Cuisenaire rods follow this system:
- White rod = 1 cm.
- Red rod = 2 cm.
- Light green rod = 3 cm.
- Lavender rod = 4 cm.
- Yellow rod = 5 cm.
- Dark green rod = 6 cm.
- Black rod = 7 cm.
- Brown rod = 8 cm.
- Blue rod = 9 cm.
- Orange rod = 10 cm.