Mathematics Archives - Kids 'R' Simple

Rise and Shine Expo – 2 great workshops worth going to + Giveaway #01

In our family, we speak Chinese 90% of the time. As a result, our kids are strong in this language that many kids here are struggling with. However, in Singapore, we have to be bilingual and are taught English and Chinese since young. English, being our teaching medium, is extremely important in getting good grades in schools. Without a good English foundation, students will struggle to understand Mathematics problem sums and tackle English comprehension questions.

Recently, my 8 year old girl is losing marks in her test papers due to her weakness in the English language. She does not have full understanding of the questions. It is not easy to be equally good in 2 languages and I do empathize with her. I take a partial blame too that I do not speak much English at home. I always believe my kids can pick up English in school easily since they interact with mostly English-speaking classmates daily. I read to them since they were babies and am still reading to them. Perhaps they are not reading enough on their own. Despite being worried about their English standard, I have never regretted speaking Chinese primarily at home. I take pride that their Chinese is strong as Chinese is indeed a very difficult language to master. It is important to speak well since it is our Mother Tongue.

So, when I knew about a workshop where the famous speaker Dr Thomas Armstrong is going to share tips on teaching everything from phonics to reading comprehension using brain strategies, I was curious to find out if there are ways for me to help my girl with her comprehension skills. This workshop is held in conjunction with the Rise and Shine Expo which will span across 3 days of exciting kids’ activities, premium brands and workshops for parents from 27-29 Sept 2013. This speaker is an award winning author of “Nurturing Multiple Intelligences in Children”. I have extracted some details to this workshop here:

Workshop with Dr. Thomas Armstrong: The multiple intelligences of reading and writing: making the words come alive!

This workshop will show parents how to help children develop literacy skills by linking words to images, music, logic, emotions, physical expression, social context, oral language, and nature. Dr. Armstrong draws upon recent neuropsychological research in showing how reading and writing skills are whole brain activities, and he provides practical tips and suggestions for teaching everything from phonics to reading comprehension using whole brain strategies.

This workshop is for parents with children from 3 to 12 years old who want to lay strong foundation in their kids in reading and writing using the concept of multiple intelligences.

Speaker:
Dr Thomas Armstrong
Award Winning Author and Advocator of Nurturing Multiple Intelligences in Children

Dr Thomas Armstrong is the author of fifteen books including Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, In Their Own Way, Awakening Your Child’s Natural Genius, 7 Kinds of Smart,The Myth of the A.D.D. Child and Awakening Genius in the Classroom. His books have been translated into twenty-six languages. He has appeared on several national and international television and radio programs, including NBC’s ”The Today Show”, “CBS This Morning”, “CNN”, the “BBC” and “The Voice of America”. Articles featuring his work have appeared in The New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily, Good Housekeeping, and hundreds of other newspapers and magazines around the country.

Date: Sat, 28 Sept
Time: 2.30pm – 4pm
Venue: Room 305, Suntec Convention Hall

To register for the workshop, please click here.

Price: $20

Early bird discount by 2 Sept: 10% off
Group booking: 3 or more in a group enjoy 50% off
PAssion Card holders: 1 for 1 signup (partner attends for free)

For more details on this Rise and Shine Expo, click here.

I would encourage those parents who are keen to help on their children’s language development to attend this workshop.

Being a Rise and Shine partner blogger, I am entitled to give away 5 pairs of tickets (worth $20 for each ticket) to my readers for this workshop. If you are interested to know how this workshop can benefit the reading and writing skills of your child, please do the following:

1) Like Kids R Simple and Rise and Shine facebook fan pages

2) Leave a comment below with your email address or on Kids R Simple facebook page (If you are not comfortable with leaving your email address, please message me via facebook)

3) The closing date for enrolment of giveaway is on 6 Sept 2013.

Good luck!

This is the first part of the Rise and Shine Expo Giveaways.

Stay tune for the second giveaway…

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!

Learning through Play – the fun and simple way

There are many ways to teach academic topics to kids through playing and games. Kids find the games interesting and get to learn English, Chinese, Mathematics without knowing. I find the ways to introduce learning something new extremely important as first impression last for a long long time. If kids are introduced to learning in a fun way, they will not tend to be put off or reject learning the same subject matter in future.

Here are 5 fun ways of learning that my kids love:

1. Teaching NUMBERS using playing cards

I love playing cards. Not to gamble with kids but to introduce the concept of numbers to my kids. There are many ways to play to reinforce this concept.

a) Big and small – The deck of cards is distributed evenly to each player. If there are 3 players, each player take turns to be the first to throw out a card, the next person has to throw out a bigger number card. Whoever throws out the biggest number card wins the pool of cards. There is a catch here. If you always throw out big number cards in the beginning, you will end up with small number cards towards the end of the game.

What is learnt here: kids get to think of what number is bigger than the number thrown out. They get to plan to reserve cards for the end where everyone has no big cards. This trains their thinking and planning skills.

b) SNAP game – Do you remember how to play “SNAP”? If you have those flash cards with a set of numbers vs a set of counting dots, you can play “SNAP” with your kids.

What is learnt here: kids learn counting and get used to patterns and train them to know the number without counting dots.

c) Memory game – Sieve out pairs of number cards, shuffle, and lay them face down on the floor. Players take turn to open 2 cards at a time. Whenever 2 cards with the same number are turned over, player gets to keep the cards. If the cards are different, they will have to be turned over face down till someone picks these cards again.

What is learnt here: kids learn numbers and train their memory skills.

2. Teaching MONEY

Set up a market stall selling fruits, vegetables, meat, etc using kids’ cooking toy set. Write down 10cents, 20 cents, 50 cents and one dollar on pieces of paper and place them on each sale item. Give your kids some money with many coins of different denominations. Start selling to your “customers”, i.e. your kids. Guide them on giving you more than the price of items and give them back money change. (My kids love this part of getting money change back. They think they earn more by getting more coins back!) Make it more fun by selling their favourite toys as well as reversing roles!

What is learnt here: kids learn the concept of money, how to count money and get back money change.

3. Teaching ENGLISH / CHINESE

Do a “SHOW AND TELL” with your kids! You can take turns to play this with your kids starting with you! Pick up anything, it can be a pen, a tissure box or a favourite toy and start describing the object in your hands. You have to speak proper English or Chinese sentences, add in some simple but interesting vocabulary. Then when it is your kids’ turn, let them rattle on and DO NOT INTERRUPT or attempt to CORRECT their descriptive phrases. Let them be proud of their “Show and Tell” moment. After all, they are “on stage”!

What is learnt here: Kids learn English and Chinese words and build up their vocabulary. The game boosts their confidence and on-stage performance. While you also do a “Show and Tell, they get to learn more difficult and interesting words and phrases from you too.

4. Teaching MATHEMATICS

It is important to recognize patterns to improve Mathematics as many Mathematics concept revolves around patterns recognition. I play board games like “Snake and Ladder” and any games that require dice throwing. Such games enable my kids to recognize the dots on the die for each number. If you use 2 dice, they learn to add the numbers too. Learning music helps on pattern recognition as well. There are endless patterns on music scores. I teach my girl to recognize the pattern of the composition and play on the piano without counting each note.

What is learnt here: kids are trained to get used to recognizing patterns so that they are able to apply them in Mathematics concept.

5. Train the BRAIN

To give a game of “Snake and Ladder” an interesting twist, we reverse the rules with the kids. With the Up the Snake and slide Down the Ladder, the kids have lots of fun catching whoever confuses with the rules. Same goes for the card games where the smaller number card wins over a big number card.

What is learnt here: kids learn to think in unconventional way and their brains are trained to switch thinking from different perspective easily.

Tag: Mathematics