Reflection on Session One (22/8/2011)

“A 1000 summers”, we started off with counting the position (cardinal number in space), trying to find the position of the letter “N” in the name “BANHAR”. As I am not very mathematically inclined, it was initially rather daunting having to attend sessions in mathematics. While I was still trying to internalize the concept, another concept emerged. More and more mathematical jargons were introduced – ordinal, cardinal, number in space, growing pattern – to name a few. In a nutshell, we had gone through the five process standards that are, problem solving, representation of ideas, justification of the way we used to solve problem and such. These processes were done through various activities such as poker, the cookies, number sense and ten frames.

Honestly, even with the space ordinal for my name, I had problem initially doing it (so much so that I did it in the primitive was – as Dr Yeap put it) until my partner, Rahimah highlighted the method to me.   



Figure 1: Finding the position in space for the letter “D” using the primitive way until after awhile than I realized there was a pattern to it – that is, the multiple of 8

POKER GAME

I tried to do it with the children in my centre. I did the bigger version of the so called poker card so that it will be easier for the children to seen the dots on the cards. The purpose was two folds – to do reinforcement on spelling of number words and for me to practice my “skill” of doing it. IT WORKS! Children were very engaged and best of all – they thought it was magic! I feel this method of learning is really effective as children enjoyed the session while at the same time undergoing a learning process without sheer pressure.



Figure 2: Children were so excited when then number that they spelt appeared.

This was the first session, I must say that I enjoyed the session and realized that maths can be taught in a fun way. Nevertheless, I could not help feeling worried for the fact that will I be able to participate as actively as I wanted when I actually have to take a longer time trying to understand each concept taught. Many a times during the session, I was just “lost” and did not know how to be involved in the discussions as I need longer time to try to understand and make meaning the concepts and activities conducted.

Well….moving on, I look forward to the next session and hopefully I will be better “enlighten” as the session goes by...