Sound Cylinders/Boxes (presentation one: matching)

What is a Sound Cylinder?

Sound Cylinders are found in the Sensorial area of a Montessori classroom. Sound Cylinders are cylindrical containers with different materials inside them that make different sounds. The sounds vary from soft to loud. The Sound Cylinders stay in two wooden boxes on the shelf, one box has a red lid and the other box has a blue lid. Each box contains six cylinders, with a matching pair in each box. The child learns how to match each cylinder with its corresponding sound partner by only using his auditory sense.

Matching using the Montessori Sound Cylinders

How the Sound Cylinders matching activity is presented?

The Directress shows the child how to carry each of the boxes correctly, one by one with two hands. She places the box with the blue lid on the left-hand side of the mat, and then she places the box with the red lid on the right-hand side of the mat.

The directress takes out the cylinders from the red box, she shakes and listens to each one as she does so, she invites the child to have a turn to listen. She tells the child that these cylinders have a matching cylinder in the blue box. She then takes out the first blue cylinder with her left hand, she shakes it and listens to it carefully trying to find the matching red cylinder with her right hand. Once she has found the matching pair, she places them next to each other, where the blue cylinder is on the left and the red cylinder is on the right. She continues in the same manner until all of the cylinders have been matched correctly. She invites the child to have a turn when she has completed the activity.

What does the child learn by matching the Sound Cylinders?

This activity helps to develop matching skills for children, it helps with the child’s auditory perception, as well as it helps the child practice his sound discrimination.

Looking for more Montessori activities?

Here is the full list of the Montessori tasks, including Visual and Muscle Discrimination Sense activities, Tactile Sense activities, Chromatic Sense activities, Auditory Sense activities, Thermic Sense activities, Gustatory Sense activities, Baric Sense activities, Olfactory Sense activities, Stereognostic Sense activities, Geometry activities, and Algebra activities. Just click on the activity you want to learn about to go there.