Need of the hour -41
Kindergarten Math
-J.P.Bharathi
Primary school along with kindergarten is a very beautiful age for learning. Math’s is a perfect cognitive concept which works well with fresh brains. Instead of giving them existing learning methods, it is better to leave them to explore for themselves. Abacus slate gives them a great understanding of math’s concepts in the initial stages.
Teaching math’s with the items in their hands is easier than asking them to count from the objects which we want them to recognize. Familiarity and possessive- ness also teaches them some amount of maths. Like, if the child has five dolls, we can tell him there are five dolls. Then slowly question him what is 5? Now the child is ready to count the dolls, may be imitating you, and call them 5. This way the child learnt the numbers from 1 to 5 and also recognizes if anyone or few are missing. Now when we miss out one doll, we can teach subtraction. By hiding one doll behind, we can teach the child that they are only four now. By placing the doll in place, we teach addition and by hiding the doll we can teach, subtraction.
This way, counting the numbers, we can teach 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. And going backwards, we can teach what is 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and 0. As the child starts recognizing these concepts, we can teach addition and subtraction.
Now let us understand one thing here. A child need not know 1 to 100 or 1000 to know addition or subtraction. If the child learns 1 to 5 we can teach the concept of addition and subtraction.
This way, counting the numbers, we can teach 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. And going backwards, we can teach what is 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and 0. As the child starts recognizing these concepts, we can teach addition and subtraction. And slowly as the child gets to the higher grades we can introduce ascending order and descending order and so on.
For example, 1 on 1 can be 2 for some kids and 11 for a little mature kid.
We can make the learning more interesting by telling the kids that we will learn maths with chocolates one day, biscuits one day, colour blocks, ice-cream sticks, and so on. Without making the child bored with the concept, the same can be taught by changing the objects every time till the child understands the concept.
Now once the child is familiar with these things, we can introduce, 1 to 5 numbers and teach them how to write numbers. This way we can progress into other details in math’s by adopting a play way method. Even when the child is playing in a park or at home, he plays with his math’s concepts.
The most difficult concept of math’s learning becomes most interesting by the time the child gets into grade V.
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