We had our presentation for our first assignment today. Here are some photos. I had to blurred my coursemates’ faces to protect their identity hahaha… This is because only one or two know that I’m a blogger The rest don’t and I don’t want them to get shocked of the sudden fame for appearing in my blog/Internet without their consent.

Here you go… No photos of me because I can’t possibly take photo when I’m up there

This is my teaching materials that I had prepared.

Here are some actions of my coursemate:

Concept development is a process that explains the changes that take place in stages due to the growth and experience which is the building blocks of knowledge. This will allow people to organise and categorise information or solve a matter met during the different stages in life. Different children develop differently, they have their own pace. If they reach a certain stage one or two years later compare to those of their same age, it’s still considered within the normal range of development.

Following are Piagetian stages of concept development of children based on their age range:

• Sensorimotor(birth to 2 years old)
  Babies learn with their 5 senses, sight, touch, smell, taste and hearing. In addition, they also utilise their their motor abilities to learn basic skills and concepts such as:
  Observation, problem solving, one-to-one correspondence, number, shape, and spatial sense
• Preoperational(2-7 years old)
  Children develop concepts that are more like those of adults but still not complete in relation to what they will be like at maturity. Speech is used increasingly to express concept knowledge such as big and small, light and heavy etc.
  Fundamental concepts and skills: Sets and classifying, comparing, counting, parts and wholes, and language.
  Applied concepts and skills: Ordering, dseriation, patterning, informal measurement(weight, length, temperature, volume, time and sequence)
  Higher level concepts and skills: Number symbols, sets and symbols
• Transitional(5-7 years old)
  There would be two types of children, one type is the conserver and another type is non conserver. This is a critical stage where teachers must look out for to ensure that they have real understanding of what mathematical operations mean.
  Applied concepts and skills: Graphing(pie chart, height chart etc.)
  Higher level concepts and skills: Concrete addition and substraction
• Concrete operational(7-11 years old)
  They are able to retain original picture or object and making a mental reversal when appearance if a picture or object is changed.
  Primary concepts and skills: Whole number, operations, fractions, number facts, place value, geometry, measurement with standard units
• Formal operations(11 and above)
  Ability to learn scientific method independently, learn to solve problem in logical and systematic manner, understand abstract concepts, and attack abstract problems.

Piaget’s view of how children acquire knowledge is divided into 3 areas:

• Physical knowledge, learning about objects in environment and their characteristic(weight, height sise, texture or anything that can be determined through observation and are physically within the object).
• Logico-mathematical knowledge involves relationships each individual construct to make sense out of the world and to organise information.
• Social(conventional) knowledge is created by people such as rules of behaviours in various social situations.

Learning cycle of early childhood:

• Awareness: borad recognition of objects, events, people or concepts that develops from experience.
• Exploration: Construction of special meaning through sensory experiences with objects, peoples, events or concept.
• Inquiry: Learners compare their constructions with those of the culture, commonalities are recognized, generalisations are made that like those of adults.
• Utilization: Applying and using their undersanding in new settings and situations.

First of all, before I go futher, we had the chance to play with tangram. It’s was quite fun. This can be used to stimulate creative thinking of children and also learn the basic concept of geometry.

What is tangram?
Got this from wiki:

Tangram (Chinese: 七巧板; pinyin: qī qiǎo bǎn; literally “seven boards of skill”) is a dissection puzzle. It consists of seven pieces, called tans, which fit together to form a shape of some sort. The objective is to form a specific shape with seven pieces. The shape has to contain all the pieces, which may not overlap.

This is not easy. Even adults will not be able to solve some of the puzzles. We managed to solve some, these are some that we managed to solve hahaha…

If you would like to play, you can just go to Google and search for “tangram”, there are lots of them there.

By the way, I have lots of reading need to do for class 2. Would be summarising them when I’m done with my reading.

OK! Was 1 hour late for class! Most of us weren’t told about it. For the first time, I am not so sure with what I’m doing there. I feel so lost and feel no confidence at all. I don’t know why. On the first class, the first assignment is already given -.-” It’s a group project and I don’t really know anyone, majority of them are seniors, they already have their own team.

I’m not sure whether I’m lucky or otherwise, the senior sitting next to me wanted to be with her usual teammate but her teammate didn’t attend class today and we were required to team up with anyone who’s in class now. She had no choice and let me be her teammate. I’m so sorry, I’m quite lost, this is my first class that relates to children and I have zero experience with children. I don’t know what to expect and how the things should be done.

Sigh… I hope this assingment would go well, she’ll do the lesson plan, and then I will get the teaching materials ready which mean I have to go do some shopping for cardboards, markers, stickers etc. After that we will have to do a presentation. ARG! Presentation, treating your audience as kids -.-” I’ve never done this… I’m so lost… I have no idea what the lecturer wants *BLUR* After this, second assignment will come. -.-”

Reading up on it is easy, anyone can do that and there’s not jargons at all but doing it? That, I have problem.

Anyway, let’s go back to what I learnt today.

How to teach children math?

• Playing games such as water play, sorting items based on clours, size(socks, mittens, shoes etc.), matching items(cards, colours etc.), board games(tic-tac-toe, checker, cards)
• Singing such as Little Indians, One, Two, Buckle My shoes
• Field trip such as visiting to places such as zoo, garden
• Counting objects such as toys
• Flash cards
• Using food such as during breakfast, counting the cereals, group the cereals, string them and count them, sandwich, pies, cakes can be used too
• Dances
• Story telling
• Body parts such as fingers, toes
• Go shopping counting the groceries and recognising the numbers on the price tags, packaging etc.
• Using clocks
• Height chart
• Role play
• Measuring objects using spoon, cups, shoes etc.
• Fill & Find bag or Mystery bag which children are asked to put their hands into the bag, feel the item in there and take it out. Then give another bag and ask them to find another item similar to the one they took out earlier on.
• Any daily acitvities will do…

When children are used to math concept in their daily life, you can help them explore more. If children A found out that children B has more cookies than him, you can try to ask them to count their cookies this will make them understand better. After that you can ask them why this happen, how to solve it, besides the suggestion provided, ask them whether there’s any other way to solve it. Lastly, be sure to follow up and review by asking more questions to clarify. Observe them and ask them questions from time to time to know their levels.

Most importantly, parents must not be intimidated by math, they must show their children that math is fun and it’s a positive thing.

Research shows that babies 7 months and above will be able to learn math by using flash cards with numbers and reading it out loud to them. This will ensure that when they go to school they can pick up mathematics faster.

Preschoolers are from age 0-8 years old. 3-4 years old can learn at least 20 numbers, 1-20 and the first 20 numbers are the most difficult. After that they will pick up the rest quite fast.

Tips to do math with preschoolers

• Develop counting skills - Kids love to count. They like to count everything they see. Count along with them.
• Learn about numbers - It’s all about number recognition. Display numbers, label items with names, numbers anywhere in the classroom. One-to-one correspondence is important. It can be done by playing matching games.
• Understand substraction and addition - Games are used for children below 4 years old. For older children like 5-6 years old, you can show them the concept with objects. Then you can test them when they are playing with blocks or when eating.
• Learn about measurement - Children like to compare height, weight, volume and so on of things they see, touch, feel and hear everyday. E.g. Use a height chart to monitor their height, a weighing scale to weigh them, using their fingers, feet or anything to measure something. Introducing standard measurement tools such as ruler or measuring tape can be done too.
• Explore geometry - Children are fascinated by shapes. Teach them to explore the shapes such as comparing or counting how many sides or corners a cube has be it 2D or 3D.

That’s all for class one. It’s not that complicated, it’s all common sense, just think more like children and have fun!