28 September 2013

The Salute Maths Game!!

 

 

 

 

 

 



Yes! Saturday morning and Dr. Yeap made us play the "Salute Maths Game"! This is my first time playing this game and it seems to be fun and interesting. Me and my friends were more than like children, we laugh and had fun playing. I will implement it in the classroom. I believe the children will love playing it and will have so much fun! The objective in this game is to see how the children are able to tell the missing number in addition/ multiplications. They have to use their mental sums to get the number right. We had multiplication, and we have to guess the number card that we had on our forehead. The captain has to tell the answer for the multiplication of the 2 numbers that she sees. From the answer, we have to derived a number. Yess! I've made it to the end of the class.

 

I went to Singapore Art Museum yesterday and I've realized that it was not easy for me to get an art that relevant to our Maths group work. I love abstract art, I like the way the artist did their art, but I have to think creatively on how am I supposed to formulate Maths activities. We have to be creative to make it more interesting and to ensure that children are able to understand and getting the answers in their creative way of thinking. I understand that pictorial may create creativeness in oneself.

 

My  take away for today's lesson is, "We need to build their intellectual capital. Not to apply, but to build intellectuality". We need to implement this in our daily lives to support the children in their learning journey.

 

From the lesson that Dr. Yeap showed to us on each day. I've learnt many ways on how to solve maths problem. It was an interesting lesson that I learnt new thing each day... I still remember what Dr. Yeap said... "I wonder how, I wonder why? during in every lesson", I believe these are the key questions to ask the children for them to think while they are doing Maths activities.

 

 Maths is Fun!!

 

27 September 2013

                          "Children making a connection based on what they had learn before".

These words reflects on me. I believe that during my early years, I was being thought to a certain methods in Maths, that makes me keep on repeating the same methods throughout my life even till now. I will still continuously using the same concept to solve some Maths problem.  

Today, we had some hands on activities in the classroom. I love hands on! It makes me feel awake. Now I do understand that Maths activities need hands on. This is to ensure that children are able to understand the concept, or how are they able to solve some Mathematical problems and also, how are they able to think out of the box. With hands on experiences, it may lead them to understanding and will be a new knowledge for them. A constructivist child. Definitely the children will have fun in the classroom.
 

Today's hands on... we use.. TANGRAMS!!

 

                                                         

 

We had 7 different pieces of tangrams. From the tangrams that we had on our hands, we are supposed to make as many squares as we can.

 

                                                                                     

 

As you can see from the above picture, we had drew the squares that we had made by using some of the tangrams. We manage to make 4 squares. I just wondering, if we use more pieces, does it makes the shapes larger? Let's predict and give it a try!

It's time to get to know about Angles !!

 

 

 

This is one of the hands on experiences that I learnt about angles. We learnt about an angle of a triangle. We get to know that TRIANGLE is no right angle! And we had hands on experience to show that a straight line is 180 C. We tore 3 pieces from the 3 sides of a triangle. From the 3 pieces of the torn angles we placed it on a straight line. (E.g based on the above diagram)

 

 

A higher thinking level child :

 

"When we do something, You will remember entire of your life, Provided you have difficulties. Experience will make you remember!

26 September 2013

Today's lesson was quite heavy for me. There were some problem solving that I felt quite difficult for me to understand. Now then I realized that how Maths going to be very difficult to understand if we do not have a good foundation in Maths during the early years, Now then I understand that if a child has a difficulties in understanding in Maths, it will quite stressful for the child to accelerate in his studies.

In the class I will always heard Dr. Yeap saying. "I wonder how?, I wonder why?"

I believe these are the 2 key questions that we must ask the children when we do our Maths problem solving together in the classroom. These two key questions will be part of our facilitation towards the children's learning. They will think out of the box just to solve the Maths problem. If the children are able to answer both 2 key questions, I believe they will get the answer to the questions.

And I also quoted this from Dr. Yeap. " Mathematics is an excellent vehicle for the development and improvement of a person".

Now, then I understand and would like to advice to ALL educators that memorizing is not a good way of teaching children Maths. Dr. Yeap said that " Children who ask to memorize, will not know how to figure it out and will not believe that they can figure out". I remembered during my school days, my Maths teacher told all the children to memorize our time table. From the multiples of 2 to the multiples of 12. I didn't want to say that the passed teachers had not done a good job, but I think, now Maths concept has changed and it is time for us to "move forward", Maths is more in understanding and now, it has very high expectation.

I believe if we know how to teach children by taking all the key important factors that we should remember, we will change the life of the children. Definitely there is an impact in their life.