Learning Multiplication

It's the start of Term 4 and I know the school will be covering the topic of Multiplication soon. The boys had grasped the concept of Multiplication during preschool but I never made them memorise the times table. I don't see the point of making them memorise so early when there's no need for them to use it at preschool level. They could do simple 2 -3 times tables though. And I had been going through the times tables every now and then but it was never a priority.

Y came home one day very grouchy and cranky. I later found out it could be because he brought home the syllabus and test schedules for Term 4 and he was feeling stressed out. He told me he is going to fail the test for sure as his teacher told the class that she won't be going teaching the times table and they should all know it by now.

I comforted him and told him that he knows the table from 1-5 though not very well. He just need to work on memorising some of them. And I will be helping them with times table 6-9. He felt so stressed up as he felt inadequate that he doesn't know something that all should know. And some of his friends who attended Math enrichment classes all knew by heart.

**edited on 6 Oct to add.

I went through his worksheets on multiplication done in school and they were just very simple multiplication concepts! All the drama for nothing. This is my kiasu kiasi boy... lol... He got his diagnostic test result home yesterday and was bragging over how easy multiplication topic is. haha. From this incident, I realized he needs more confidence in tackling new topics in school. Something to think about as I don't prep the boys for school syllabus. I expect them to learn in school and I will help them along. But they told me they want me to teach them first so they can raise up their hands to answer questions in class. Hmm.. **

Anyway, to help him gain some confidence, we continued our multiplication learning activities.

I used a few resources for our learning activities:

- Multiplication Chart 
They skip count and list out the times table, making their own chart.

- Times Table Worksheet
I printed the 6 times table worksheet from worksheetfun.com. It helped to do the times table worksheet in sequence first.

- 6 Times Table Chart
I cut pieces of paper for them to do their own flip board for the 6 times table. I had a very happy boy here doing his own lift the flaps.

- 6 Times Table Snake
Fold a paper strip to let them write the 6 times table on it.

- Bingo Game

This was the highlight of the whole session. I randomly wrote some numbers from the 6 times table on a paper. They started with 1 dice. A player roll a dice and multiply the number on the dice by 6. They will circle the answer and try to form a row. A horizontal line earns them 1 point and a vertical (longer) line earns them 2 points. After a few rounds, we added another dice. The add the number of the 2 dices together to multiply by 6. I would say they picked up the 6 times table quite well with this game. It was effortless remembering at work. They even did division unknowingly, trying to see figure out what number they need to get to form a row.

It was a fruitful session and we are continuing our multiplication learning with 7, 8 and 9.

Best Friends for 10 with Egg Cartons

It's very important for children to understand the number combinations to make 10. I call them Best Friends for 10. Having a good understanding will be beneficial to them when they do bigger number addition problems for Primary level mathematics.

What You Need:
Empty Egg Carton
Pom Poms (2 colors)

You can use Beans, Colored Pasta, etc. In fact, anything.  

The boys weren't too interested in this activity as they weren't keen on learning Math that day. They knew this is "work" in disguise. But I managed to fool one of them into playing "Raining Pom Poms" They grab a handful of poms poms, throw them into the egg cartons and tata... we have raining pom poms. Sort them out a bit and we can have a 3D ten frame.

I did this activity with my P3 student who is still weak with simple addition and subtraction. I was worried she may find this too "childish" but to my surprise, she enjoyed it. This activity satisfy the Kinesthetic part of learning and allows her to "see" the number combination.

Being able to "see" the numbers helps the children to understand better. Once the children understand and know the number combination for 10 very well, addition of bigger numbers will be a breeze. Daily repetitive drilling works too but isn't this much better?

Graphing with Preschoolers

I had introduced graphing with the boys last year when we got a pack of sea animals eraser back from the Underwater World field trip. They are excellent manipulatives for Math activities! Since then, we touched on it through books. Recently, we are learning Subtraction and the concept of "fewer than" stumped them. They could understand "more than" easily but I don't think they truly understood "fewer than" though they know they need to subtract.

Today, they came home telling me that they learnt graphing in school and were very excited about it as they recalled a book we read about Graphing.

Since I didn't prepare any materials and they couldn't wait, I took out the pack of sea animal erasers again. They remembered what they did before and proceeded to do up the graph on their own. I'm glad to see the great improvement in sorting and they were able to follow instructions to do up their own graph.

Y wanted to draw his own graph and he came up with this.

K got a little upset that the graph we did is not the same as what his teacher taught. He said I don't listen to his teacher... duh...  So I got him to show me what he did in school. He had his own idea of how he wanted to create his graph. He asked for a stencil to draw his sea animals.

Graphing is a simple basic Math concept to introduce to young children and can be a lot of fun.

How I got my preschooler to count to 100.

The best thing that my boys benefited from their bad sleeping habits or from their battle against sleep is to be able to count up to 100.

When they were 3, Y would keep running out of his bed announcing "Mummy, I can't sleep!" To avoid the tears and battle during bedtime, we came up with the "Count to 100" strategy. He would sit on the rocker chair with me and I would rock him as we count to 100. He has to go back to his bed after we count to 100 and may not come out again. He kept to the agreement sometimes, he fell asleep when we haven't even reached 50 sometimes or he would run out several times to count on some days. It started with me counting only, then with him counting after me, then progress to him counting with some help from me when he got stuck. After 2 months, he mastered his counting to 100. Counting to 100 was no longer challenging to him and the strategy didn't work anymore. I wanted to introduce skip counting but I'm happy that he came up with counting backwards himself. K, being a better sleeper who also count lesser is getting quite upset that his brother can count from 100-1 while he can only do 1-100.

Learning can take place in the most unconventional way. I would note in Y's growing journal that he mastered counting because he was the worst sleeper in the family.          

Math with a pack of Erasers

The boys got these as a souvenir from their field trip. How cute! Turns out, they love love love these erasers and have been spending time "biting" people with their mini sharks. I thought I may as well make it a little more useful.

So, we did

Sorting and Counting

Counting

Sequencing

Graphing

Measuring

Estimating and more counting
I put some erasers into a clear jar and ask them to estimate. They will then pour the erasers out to count. I also tried to introduce the concept of "More than" or "Less than". This activity was inspired by Deborah from Teach Preschool.

Since I'm more of a language person, I see my kids doing very well with language but mediocre when it comes to Math. It's effortless for me to engage them in conversations, to make up stories but it takes a little more effort to introduce Math concepts. It just does not come naturally to me. I wish Math can remain this way all the way to adulthood. I'm so not looking forward to Primary school maths. My consolation, my husband took all the maths subjects available in school.

Maths - Counting Beans

Y&K enjoys counting but they still can't count. They don't know when they should stop counting. :)
I was thinking of reusing the Red beans from the scooping activity we did for another activity and came up with this.

I'm doing this activity with 5 bowls each time. Their attention span is still extremely short. I'm already lucky to have them sit through the counting of 5 bowls.

What You Need:
Containers
Labels (to label the container with numbers)
Beans or any other counters

I showed them the number on the container and gave them the correct number of beans. For example, I give them 5 beans for bowl "5". And they put the beans into the container and we count together. They still don't know when to stop counting at the end of this activity but I think they are slowly getting it.