Undoubtedly Mew needs more practice in her math skills. At her same age, Helen, her tiny Chinese girl friend, has mastered additions and subtractions for numbers up to 20 (and maybe even higher), and is always eager to solve math challenges and problems. Unfortunately, such great passion for learning seems quite strange to Mew. Teaching Mew basic maths thus becomes my priority task among other jobs including talking in French with her on a daily basis, strengthening her reading skill in mother tongue, and enriching her English vocabulary at the same time. Quite a few!
So let's start with our math adventure!
At first, we need to strengthen Mew's counting skill.
She can count up to 100 already but sometimes she needs reminders at tens like 30, 40, etc. We use physical objects in our house such as (emptied) gift cards, blocks of Lego, crayons, yogurt containers, hair clips, macaroni, bread tabs, etc. to illustrate the "one to one correspondence". I have to say that the possibilities of recycling a household item are unlimited and thus free teaching and learning tools are so easy to find around (it also teaches the kids about environmental protection notion via recycling, reusing, re-purposing). Flashcards with cute and colourful pictures to illustrate number concept prove useful for young kids too.
I bought a Snake and Ladder game set from Dolarama for Mew to play. It is basically a counting board game so it helped her indeed to count and later to add while moving her piece across the board. Once Mew's counting skill improved, I hang out the mat of the Snake and Ladder game onto the wall so that she could use it as a reference chart whenever she forgets a higher number on the upward or downward sequence. I also note that we could teach kids with skip counting by 2s, 5s or 10s using the same game mat (however skip counting has not yet been an official topic in our math curriculum so far; I just mentioned it while we completed some math exercises together).
We can assess how far Mew can sequentially count and how much she knows about numerical order by asking her "What number comes after number ...?" and "What number comes just before number ...?" These questions seem to be easy but the skill is critical for understanding both addition and subtraction.
Dominoes are an extremely good math activity because, besides being a game, the matching of numbers (in the simple form of the game) is required. Children see the dots, can orally name them, and then can make the correct match. Later when kids need to learn addition, adding the dots on the dominoes is a perfect exercise.
To motivate kids with their math learning while adding some flavours to it, I established a bonus/reward system where Mew could get a fake money bill (taken from a boardgame like The Game of Life or Monopoly) whenever she provided us a correct answer to a math problem. After that, she could count her "monetary" gains and possibly noted down her records. If we replay the same number of math problems everyday, she can compare her daily records to see if she makes progress (by getting more money, lol).
At the kindergarten, they just focus on counting up to 31 so that kids can tell the date of any day during the month. I ordered a
free Chapmans calendar and bought some cheap stickers and everyday Mew would put a sticker on the right date of that day and tell me the number of that cell on the calendar.
One more topic we should work together soon is counting backward. Research shows that the skill of backwards counting is one that eventually develops the ability to understand subtracting by ones. It is also a visualization skill. I guess Mew can easily master that skill in no time since after we imposed more math drilling sessions at home, Mew's math competency has been apparently better and she now can add up to 20 and subtract from 10 with less errors.
We all notice that Mew prefers playing to learning (after all, who ever does not?) so we try to make her learning/drilling sessions as enjoyable as possible. We work with activity books, IQ books, flashcards and board games most of the time. If the games are fun, children don’t even realize that they are practicing learning. As the concentration ability of kids is still low, we could not expect to work with Mew for more than 15 minutes without changing activities. We also realize that repetition is very important while dealing with math and short daily sessions appear to be more effective than long sessions once in a while.
Mew needs to focus more on writing correctly numerals. It is a bit surprising but even when she can count sequentially and add or subtract numbers, she still reverses numerals such as 3, 5, 7 sometimes. More tracing exercises on a large, flat surface with the help of parents to hold kid's hand will help a lot. It is important that the kids should get the "feet" of the shape of each numeral. And it is suggested to try doing the tracing together with the kid's eyes closed and say the numerals as the parents trace it with the kid.
To teach Mew addition and subtraction, we use concrete examples. For example, "Mew has 5 balloons, Mommy gives Mew 3 more balloons. So finally how many balloon Mew has?" or "Mew has 5 candies. Mew gives Helen 2 candies (or Helen takes 2 candies from Mew). So finally how many candies Mew has left?" and so on. Mew likes such vivid examples and she even wants to create silly problems to work with. She once tried to added 5 "love" with 4 "love", lol. Initially we allow her to use objects or her fingers to reach the answer but gradually we ask her to solve the problem in her mind instead. Once she is more comfortable with single addition or subtraction problem at a time, we give her complex problems which comprise 2 addition or subtraction problem continuously.
Regarding teaching addition, I taught her to compare immediately the 2 numbers in the addition problem then starting from the larger number, counting up with the remaining smaller number. For example, 3 + 9, she needs to know right away that 9 > 3 so she should start from 9 (considering as if she has already had 9 in her mind) and continue to count for 3 more, namely 10, 11, and 12. In this way, she does not need to count from 3 up to 12 since it would take longer to do so. I think this notion is a math characteristic called cumutativeness where 3 + 9 = 9 + 3. We also teach her some leap additions such as 2 + 2 = 4, or 5 + 5 = 10 or 10 + 10 = 20 when asking her to do a specific number of tooth brushes herself every night. For instance, my hubbie always asks her to brush her teeth 2 times of 5 for upper and lower jaws!
Simple board games are fun experience for kids to learn basic math too. Board games involve rolling dice, counting spaces ahead or backward and also keeping score. It is recommended to always ask the kid to keep track of the score and teach her how to make a tally, writing four ones next to each other and then crossing the fifth one diagonally across the others. This is a great way to teach a child to count by fives. Board games, which involve tossing of dice or spinning that result in a number of moves across a board, are excellent ways to develop sequential math understanding. These games are particularly helpful if there are backward moves as "penalties" in the game.
To help very young kids to count up to 10 in English, visit
Starfall to hear the song about Ten little snowmen or watch a cartoon about
10 little pigs on Youtube.
To learn counting backwards from 10 and subtracting by one, teach your kid to learn the song about
10 little monkeys also on Youtube or to memorize the poem about
10 little pumpkins by Megan Sheakoski
Ten Little Pumpkins Poem
by Megan Sheakoski
Ten little pumpkins growing on a vine,
One was picked and then there were nine.
Nine little pumpkins looking really great,
One was picked and then there were eight.
Eight little pumpkins counting to eleven,
One was picked and then there were seven.
Seven little pumpkins rolling through the sticks,
One was picked and then there were six.
Six little pumpkins bigger than beehives,
One was picked and then there were five.
Five little pumpkins sitting on the floor,
One was picked and then there were four.
Four little pumpkins underneath a tree,
One was picked and then there were three.
Three little pumpkins wearing little shoes,
One was picked and then there were two.
Two little pumpkins having lots of fun,
One was picked and then there was one.
One little pumpkin sitting all alone,
One was picked and then there was none.
