Montessori Rainbow Architect Arches

Beautiful smooth solid beechwood nesting arches in the seven rainbow colours, with a natural finish to show the grain of the wood. The inner block is a solid 3D semicircle.

Ideal for construction and imaginative play: to build sculptural structures; to design areas for filling with small world play people or animals; exploring size and scale; using mathematical terms - larger, smaller, taller, steeper etc; and improving language skills and broadening vocabulary to describe their activities in action.

Heights: 19mm, 27mm, 36mm, 47mm, 56mm, 63mm and 73mm.
Lengths: 40mm, 58mm, 76mm, 94mm, 112mm, 130mm and 148mm.
Wall thickness 8mm x width 40mm.

Supports the following areas of learning:
• Personal Development - collaborative play
• Physical Development - motor skills, construction
• Communication & Language - descriptive language
• Expressive Arts & Design - imaginative play
• Maths - shape & space, sorting, pattern & sequence
• Understanding the World - colour

What the Nursery World Award testers said:

Described as an "outstanding" resource with "endless" learning opportunities, these sets were used in one of the settings to build different objects, nest together and colour match, and produced lots of "rich language, moving and handling and collaborative play".

The smooth edges are safe for younger children, and a child with special educational needs in one setting loved them, and said "rainbow" for all of them because of the colours. Testers commended the open-endedness of the product and their value for exploring a range of concepts - colour, size, shapes, curved and straight - as well as how shapes fit together.

A very "versatile and open-ended resource" [said] one setting whose children used them to create patterns and design rooms which they filled with small-world play people and furniture. The shapes are also useful for helping the children to learn colours, shapes and sizes and use mathematical terminology such as "larger", "smaller, "taller" and "wider", which is great for broadening their descriptive vocabulary.

"I would definitely recommend them to other settings - and they are a timeless resource that we look forward to using with the children for many years to come!" enthused one tester.