Reflections after 2nd session 2/4/2013

Observation of a K2 boy

Tim, a K2 child cannot tell the teacher the correct number of eggs in the photo. What information can you provide to Tim’s parents?

The child needs to practice more on:-

•      Count using concrete materials.
•          One-to-one correspondence
•           Rote counting

Young learners must do counting, matching to determine Cardinal numbers.  The teaching of Mathematics to children must follow the CPA approach (concrete, pictorial and abstract) to align with the development of young children, nurturing them in the process of becoming capable thinking adults.

Shaking can experiment

Problem

If this is 3, I wonder how much is this?  Teacher shakes the can. In the process continuously refer back to “benchmark” sound. This process gives a reference yardstick for students to guess the subsequent number of paper clips in the can.

This experiment gives an initial lesson on comparison. Richard Skemp (1978) introduced the theory on Relational Understanding where he found that understanding is a measure of the quality and quantity of connections that a new idea has with existing ideas. The greater the number of connections to a network of ideas, the better the understanding. 

I’ve never thought of using sound to teach the number concept. When teaching number concept, preschool teacher have to engage the senses of the young child. Through this experiment, we are also teaching the young minds to perceive Maths using their listening skills.  On the other hand, introduce the “guess” element that keeps the young minds in suspense. By having this fun element in lessons, children will be engaged in their learning and using their sense of hearing, other than sight, to help them solve this Maths problem. Good experiment to try with my students!

Problem

7 + 6 =

This addition equation can be read in 2 ways

•       Double of something add on 1
•       Double of something less of 1

Kindergarten Basics

First 6 years of child’s life must learn :-

•       Language (at least 1 language learnt well)
•         Concrete experiences
•         Visualization
•       Number Sense
•        Patterns
•        Social skills