Sound Cylinders

Sound Cylinders are a traditional Montessori material isolating a single auditory sense: the sense of hearing. This activity can be offered to a child starting from two and a half (you can always try earlier and see if the child responds) and is usually presented after introducing the Knobbed Cylinders, Pink Tower, and Binomial Cube.

Sound cylinders come in two (red and blue) identical sets of six sealed wooden cylinders that make a distinctive sound when shaken. The cylinders are graded from very soft to loud, and each cylinder has either a red or a blue top. Each set is contained in a wooden box with a matching red or blue lid.

Your child will learn:

• Auditory/sound discrimination by exploring one sense – a sense of hearing; the sense of order.
• Matching the sounds, since sounds made by the cylinders are paired, i.e. the sound made by one cylinder in the red set matches the sound made by its equivalent cylinder in the blue set.