A new year, a new approach: Waldorf and Montessori homeschooling

I've been attracted to Waldorf schooling methods for some time. I've just delved into basic Montessori methods and I find both to have elements that are not just brilliant but compatible.

I will give maths as one example of what we've incorporated this year:
Maths and the Abacus
We have used RightStart math for some time, in fact we have all their material and manipulatives for grades up to 4. RightStart is Montessori inspired, as I understand it. It is a brilliant program, and I cannot rave about their Alabacus enough. It leaves cuisenaire rods and even Montessori beads in the dust: numbers are not just amounts of a certain colour—you can immediately see that 7 is not just 7 beads, it is 5 and 2 beads. This makes such a difference for all kinds of maths skills, especially mental math. For those of a Montessori background, the difference is explained well here.
I remember cuisenaire rods when I was in kindergarten: pretty coloured wooden rods, but what the heck did it have to do with math?? I had no idea. Seven might have been a length of orange or pink wood, but it had no segments in it to show those 7 units. It was just a length of colour. It didn't designate quantity, unless compared with other arbitrarily coloured rods.
I recently enjoyed a lesson with Baby No.2 where I incorporated a gigantic set of math blocks / rods by the German company, Grimm's Speil & Holz Design. This is my first Spiel & Holz purchase, but won't be my last. These are the world's best wooden blocks. They differ from the regular cuisenaire rods (and Montessori coloured beads) in that they follow a logical rainbow sequence, rather than an arbitrary colour order. We had much fun discovering visually how many ways there are to make ten (and other numbers). Did you know 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10? I hadn't thought about it till today.
BUT we did find it frustrating that there were no segments in the rods, to help specify their unit amount. I suppose that with time, a length of pale green would come to be understood as 3, but I don't see 3 units in that piece of wood.
So, with the above in mind, I've hit on an idea. I'm going to make my own number rods out of sawn-up Base Ten (or MAB) ten-unit blocks. They are segmented, so the units are evident. I will colour them to match the AlAbacus; for example, I will have a rod of 7 which will be 5 units blue, two yellow. And so on. Then, I'll use these in the same manner as Montessori coloured beads are used; I have the Checkerboard in mind, in particular. I'll post pictures of these as soon as they are to hand.