Day 5: Trip to museum, Geometry, Tangrams

Visit to the different museums

We were given an hour to explore the art pieces in the different museums near our campus. First, we have decided to visit the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) however we did not find anything that we could relate much to Math. So we decided to visit the Peranakan Museum after much thought. We found something that we like that we could relate to counting in sets, patterning and addition! It is amazing at how we could craft an art piece into a math problem. So here it goes!

SingaporeArt Museum

Peranakan Museum 

Our chosen artefact

Back in school

We explored once again with tangrams. This time round on the different ways to make a square.

 Apparently, there are ALOT of ways to form a square! and here is our findings!

Day 4: Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction, Fractions, Area, Length, Geometry

Learning multiplication is not about memorizing the time table.I remember when I was in primary school, i was encouraged to memorize the time table. It was the most dreadful thing ever. The initial weeks, my teacher would paste a tiny piece of paper reflecting the time table 3 to 9 on each table so that we could refer to it and in hope that someday it will glue to our dear brains as well.

children need to conceptualize what multiplication is about by introducing them using the CPA approach

multiplication of 3
Concrete: show real objects of same noun. Get children to group the bottles in 3s.

Pictorials: use pictures and let the children explore grouping the pictures in 3. One way is by circling them.

Abstract: Getting children understand that 

3                + 3                   + 3

or

3 boxes of 3

or

3 x 2 = 6

Doubling Strategy

2 x 7 = 14

                            +7

3 x 7 = 21

                           +7

4 x 7 = 28

                          +7

5 x 7 =35

                         +7

6 x 7 = 42

Notice that 4 x 7 is the same as double of 2 rows

6 x 7 = 42 as it is double of 3 x 7 

So, with the doubling method in mind, we could say that,

 7 x 7= (4 x 7) + (3 x 7)

7 x 7= 28 + 21

7 x 7= 49

For 9 x 7 for instance,

we can take 9 x 10, which is easier to see and then just subtract 7 from the answer 90.

so with that,

9 x 7 = 63