Tuesday 13 August 2013

Lesson 2 : Whole Numbers


Through today's lesson, I learnt of a new math concrete material, 10 Frames. Never did I realized that such a simple material can be made to be a math manipulative for the children to explore with whole numbers.

What exactly is 10 frame? It is a frame with 10 boxes !



I googled on do-it-yourself 10 frame, and had found an alternative way of making my very own 10 frame. And that is by using egg cartons, and label the numbers from 1 - 10 on each egg holder.

With the theme of "Jack and the beanstalk", I was given beans to manipulative with my DIY 10 frame. The beans was used as an actual object that is related to the theme of the lesson. This allowed children to use actual things to count with. With Dr Yeap's open ended questions, it allowed me to think of the way he used words wisely to specifically ask the questions in detail.

"5 Beans is half of 10. How do you know?"

I know 5 beans is half of 10 because, 5 boxes are empty while the other 5 boxes are filled with beans. This made an equal amount of number. 

Through this activity, it enhances my critical thinking, and it allowed me to think in depth. With Dr Yeap's questions, "I wonder why ... ", "How do you know ... " it allows me to bring my curiosity to a whole new level. It made me wonder the reason behind certain things and challenge myself to do more than i could ever think of.

With the concrete materials, it helped me to visualize the problems better and work the solution with ease. I believe this will also work well with children too, so as to enhance their visual skills by seeing numbers visually.

Upon introducing this activity to the children, i have to ensure that the children have the basic knowledge of knowing and understanding the value of 1 - 10. With 10 frame, it also helped children to learn the different combination of number bonds, up to 10 ( 7 is more than 3, 4 + 2 make up a 6, 6 is double of 3, 6 is 4 less than 10). 

No matter how each individual arranges the beans on the 10 frame, 7 is still 7. Children are also able to enhance their 1 to 1 correspondence skills when they place the beans into each boxes. They are able to learn number facts through enhancing their counting and addition, subtraction skills. 

This allowed the children to develop subitization, in which they are able to identify the number of objects in a set without counting. With practices, the children will be able to recognize the number at a glance of the arrangement. In addition, children will be able to identify the number of empty boxes which is the number complement to 10.

I can also extend the activity by adding another 10 frame when the children are familiar with the basic of counting the beans using one 10 frame. This allowed the children to enhance their number sense, by exposing to numbers from 1 - 20. Through this, they are also able to enhance their knowledge of +9 in which is the same as adding 10 and removing 1. 

With this, I would like to end this blog post with a video that shows an independent learning activity of using 10 frame that I would love to add into my classroom!







No comments:

Post a Comment