Tag: bottle caps

Learning Math – Simple Division using bottle caps

Division using bottle caps

My girl has started on learning “Division” in school and I know it is not easy for her to grasp it as a new topic.  Yet, this concept is in everyday life and she just doesn’t know it’s called “Division”.

If you had read my earlier post “Learning Math – Mass using Lego blocks“, you would have known that I have been trying out simple Math concepts for my 2 kids using Sarah’s (from Frugal Fun for Boys) method that she uses for home-schooling.

First we start with some bottle caps (we had 12 of them).  Then, I asked XX and YH to draw on a piece of paper each with 2 columns as the following:

1st column: Numbers 1 -12 – This is the number of bottle caps that we used in all.

2nd column: “Each person has               caps.”  This is to write down after dividing the bottle caps between the 2 kids, how many bottle caps does each person has.

Again, my kids love the decorating part for their papers but this time round, they spent lesser time on it.

So, the games goes – I started with 1 cap and ask them:

Question 1 – “Is 1 an even or odd number?”

Question 2 – “Can it be divided equally between 2 persons (XX and YH)?”  If their answer is “Yes”, they put a tick beside the number 1 on their paper, otherwise, they put a cross.

Question 3 – “How many bottle caps will each person get?” And here they have to write down the answer in the 2nd column. (XX actually answered yes in Question 2 and her answer for this part is each person will get “half” the cap, haha, it is not wrong even though that’s not the answer I am looking for.  Clever girl!)

And the game goes on with 2 bottle caps all the way to 12 bottle caps.

YH's check sheet

Even before the end of the game, they began to see an “AB” patterning but still does not know how “Division” concept comes in here.  That’s when I had to explain to them that by doing this activity, we are learning on “Division”.  This is simple division of 2.  As XX already understand multiplication, I wrote down the number sentences for 2 x 4 = 8 vs 8 bottle caps divided into 2 persons, i.e. 8 ÷ 2 = 4.  After writing a few more examples, she began to understand the relation between multiplication and division.  As for my boy, it is a little more challenging to understand the big word “DIVISION”, but he could grasp the concept of dividing bottle caps equally.  Also, he understood more on what is odd and even numbers.

XX and YH had fun playing this activity while their baby brother YT was reading and playing with bottle caps by the side 🙂

YT reading @ 6th mth

Do you have simple and fun learning for Math or other subjects?  Share with me!  I would love to hear new ideas to play at home!

Learning Math – Mass using Lego blocks

Balancing object      YH balancing with Lego blocks

I have been thinking how to teach simple Math concept through play that will interest both my 8 year old XX and 6 year old YH.  I found so many resources in countless excellent blogs in the blogosphere.  One of them is on learning the concept of Mass using Lego blocks, a hanger and simple objects (found in Frugal Fun for Boys blog).  This is timely as XX happens to be learning Mass now.

First, get a hanger and 2 strings / ribbons.  Then, with 1 string / ribbon, tie a Lego block as a starting piece so that later on more Lego blocks can be fixed to it and the other string / ribbon tied to any object that is not too heavy.  Next, I got XX and YH to each draw a simple score board with 3 columns with the following:

1st column: OBJECT – What is the object being weighed?
2nd column: GUESS – How many Rectangular Lego blocks do you think will balance the object?
3rd column: ACTUAL – The final answer to the number of blocks that will balance the object.

Score board

XX and YH took quite some time to work on this score board, simply because they were busy decorating their score board, and we have not even started anything yet!

The kids enjoyed the activity and we tabulated the scores with guesses that have the correct answers.  2 points for the correct answer and 1 point for close to correct answer as a consolation.

* You would have noticed that the 2 pieces of score board in the picture look weird.  That’s because when we tabulated the score, YH was not happy that he lost to his sister by 1 point, and he did a naughty act by spitting some saliva on his sister’s score board.  I, too, did a naughty thing to scrap the saliva back onto his paper and there you see XX’s paper was cut short to remove the saliva portion, and YH’s paper was torn a hole as he tried to wipe off his own saliva.  It’s a norm to see them squabble over such minute things.  And equally a norm to see me deviate from the goody, yummy mummy supposed by-the-book way of punishment. 

Off center balance

Oh, and one interesting and unexpected learning from this activity is that when each child took turns to weigh their Lego blocks, they shifted the Lego string position.  This resulted in off center balance of the hanger as the centre of gravity had shifted.  When initially we saw that it took 10 Lego blocks to reach balance, it now could not balance and required 12 blocks instead due to the string shift.  I had a good opportunity to demonstrate that the position of the strings at the 2 ends of the hanger was important in determining the balancing act of the object and the Lego blocks.  And the kids were pleasantly surprised by this new finding! 

Try it with your kids and you will be off to great, simple fun learning!