The Pink Tower
Published on: April 25, 2026
The Pink Tower
Age: 2½ to 4 years
Materials: 10 solid wooden cubes, varying from 1×1×1 centimeters to 10×10×10 centimeters.
Purpose
Build blocks of graduated three-dimensional sizes in order to understand sequence and order.
Presentation
Spread a mat or rug on the floor — Dr. Montessori used a green carpet in her first school. Carefully scatter the cubes over the mat. Build a tower starting with the largest cube. Choose slowly and with deliberation.
Grasp each cube with one hand to get the muscular impression of the size. Build the tower from largest to smallest. The child will probably not be able to do this with the largest cube with one hand — it is fine to use both hands. However, the other cubes should be able to be grasped this way.
(Again the connection — the hand is visually measuring the cubes for the mind to process.)
Exercise
The child builds the tower after the demonstration. Using the three-period lesson, introduce the concept of large and small; large, larger, largest; small, smaller, smallest. Also thicker and thinner.
There are counter cards for the Pink Tower:
Click here for a printout of the counter cards
Extensions
Explore size in other contexts. Have different objects of similar shapes but different sizes to investigate. Use the terms — large and small, largest and smallest, larger and smaller, larger than and smaller than, and thicker and thinner — for vocabulary.
Control of Error
Visual
Get the Materials
Shop the Montessori Pink Tower on Amazon