A recipe for a Math Game!
Recently, we have been working on some Math exercises for a little one. Written work has always been a little discouraging. However, he needed the math drill. By the way, drilling is not a bad thing. We all need drilling to master skills – ask any sportsman or musician or mathematician… or anyone else. However, it is the process of how we drill that affects the child’s liking or learning experience.
So with a dash of fun, we ended up doing more “drills” than we would have on pen and paper. So here is a mini outline of what we planned and how it went.
He loved it. The element of the unknown (opening cups) and the excitement of getting rewards and some risk ( getting empty cups) , and the atmosphere of play in this little activity motivated him to do what he usually would have needed more encouragement to do – yes… even the subtraction sums.
Through the process, he was more attentive in looking at the cards and the numbers which helped reinforce his visual memory. As we knew which pairs of numbers he had trouble with, we designed for some repetition too!
What was most surprising was this – I thought the little one will be keeping all the little reward stickers. Instead, he took them and started putting them in the cups and said, “ Let’s play again!”
Try this little idea in your exercises! It can be used for small groups too which would mean that the kiddies can practice in turn taking. It can also be used for different subjects or learning objectives. Alter them where you need to. For instance, change the questions or the reward tokens. It might take a little more effort in preparing as compared to dog-earring pages in the book for work but it goes a longer way in satisfaction and fun.
By the way, don’t throw pen and paper exercises out of the window!
Keep the written assignments for “review” or a little wrap up assignment!
Disclaimer: There is one little downside to this. The little one might insist to be involved in the preparation process and work at putting “reward tokens” in every cup instead!
Have fun!
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