Monday, October 14, 2013

Session 2: Teaching of whole numbers

Dr Yeap introduced us to the usage of ten frames today. I thought, how apt!, as my K2s are currently learning all about tens and ones, moving to numbers greater than 20, and this is a great tool to help them!
They will learn to solve addition and subtraction problems, and learn number relationships.

Our fun times with ten frames using beans that Dr Yeap gave us during class to count and explore:



Ways to make 18..






Game with a partner... how many moves till I win? Remove two or three beans first?



Here's a video on the usage of ten frames:


The very next day, I let my children make ten frames of their own and they succesfully formed numbers within ten after a few fun rounds of getting used to using the ten frames.


This picture shows one of my students and his way of forming the number 5, with one red bean on the yellow paper, and four red beans on the other. They were sharing that number bonds have similar methods with ten frames as the question is asked: "___ and ____ make ?" I'm really glad that they understood the concept and enjoyed exploring with the beans and ten frames.



Indeed, as children learn to count, first starting from 1 to 10, then to 20, then to 30, 40, 50 and leading to 100, it can get confusing with so many numbers. Do they really understand the relationships between these numbers, especially when it comes to the tens?

Dr Yeap explained to us that some children cannot:
-rote count
-classify or sort 
-do one to one correspondence
-understanding of cardinal numbers

And we teachers get frustrated and wonder which part do they need help in....

How then do we help these children? 
Give them concrete materials to explore and play with :)

Cubes, beans, shapes etc. Let's have fun!


Also, how do we help children understand the terms of cardinal, ordinal and nominal numbers? Dr Yeap gave us some helpful insights in the explanation of what each term means as we teachers often get confused with the meanings.


This video also explains the terms:



An insightful session indeed!



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