Primary School Prep DIY Guide-Math-Page 6
USE SONGS
When children learn math through songs, their ability to retain math concepts increases significantly. We highly recommend the use of songs to teach math. It will also keep their interest for longer. Either make up a song yourself as you teach or find free videos online that teach through songs. We found it very difficult to find free videos online that taught the principles that we are teaching, and also taught through songs.
All the videos in the Primary School Prep Done 4U math programme are delivered through songs.
INCORPORATE THE SCHOOL SYLLABUS
We have just touched on some topics that you can introduce above. You can introduce more topics, however, to give them a head start, ensure that some of those topics are appropriate parts of the first year/second year school syllabus that can easily be taught to a baby/toddler. We have already outlined some topics you could teach your child above, however, with Primary School Prep Done 4U the entire math course is designed with the school syllabus in mind, taken from multiple countries around the world including Singapore, USA, UK, India, Canada and Australia.
PROGRESSIVELY MORE DIFFICULT
As your baby/toddler starts to get a grasp of the maths concepts you will find that it will start to get easier for him or her. You will need to increase the difficulty of the math facts. For example; you may start with “2 + 2”, but you may later have to increase the difficulty to using numbers above 10, such as “12 + 3”. You will not have to worry about this at the beginning, but especially if you have persisted with the math for your child, you will find that eventually they will need more difficult material.
With Primary School Prep Done 4U the difficulty levels automatically increase over time.
MAKE IT INTERESTING
Children get bored quickly. Math is one subject that can get them bored quickly. So, when you are presenting the facts make sure you do it enthusiastically. This is why we recommend that you teach using songs. Make up songs for the topics and present the facts while singing. For example; sing “one plus one is two,” rather than just saying it. Make up a song for skip counting in twos. Sing, “two, four, six, eight, ten.”
This is very important if you want to keep their interest.
This is why we recommended digital resources above, but when looking for free videos please make sure that the videos are interesting and not boring videos that will cause your baby/toddler to lose interest.
With Primary School Prep Done 4U we have taken a lot of time to ensure that each math video is made in a way that is interesting for your child.
AGE START
We recommend starting to show your child the flash cards from five months.
You may think, “what is the point of showing a child addition equations and fractions at 5 months?”. Please don’t follow the conventional wisdom of western education. It makes a difference - it is not so they can repeat it to you after one week, but it is to train their brain. This takes time and you may not see results straight away, but one day it will shock you and surprise you and give you great joy when your child, at a young age is able to recognise and say (or point to) what the fraction is as you hold up the fraction flash card.
However, start as soon as you can. If your child is two years old, start then. If your child is three, start then. The best results are seen when you start younger but start when you can.
How long it takes?
We cannot say when you will start seeing results, as it is different for each child. Your focus should be on presenting your child with the math facts. Over time they will show you what they know. It could be six months, it could be a year, or it could be longer. Be persistent and be patient with your child.
QUIZZING
Please don’t spend your time testing your child. Focus on showing him or her the material. You may find one day that you hold a flash card to show them and before you start talking to present the information, they say it before you do. We have seen this happen and it will give you great joy and quite often it comes after months and months of presenting the information and wondering whether it was actually going in. So, our patience bore fruit.
However, there is nothing wrong with giving your baby/toddler the opportunity to show what they know. Certainly, don’t do anything for the first six months. Then you could for example, lay out the fraction cards showing, “half”, “quarter”, “third” and ask your child in an animated way, “where is a quarter?" and see if they point to the right card. If they do, celebrate them. If they point to the wrong card (for example, a half instead) celebrate them and say, “nice try”, pick up the “half” flash card and say, “this is a half”, then pick up the quarter card and say, “this is a quarter”.
You could make a flash card which just says, “one plus one =“, without the answer, then have 3 separate flash cards with one right answer and two wrong answers (“three” or “four”). Then you could ask, “Is it “two, three or four”?”. If they pick the right card, celebrate your child. If they pick the wrong card, celebrate them and say, “nice try”, then pick up the right card.
If you are on the quantity recognition stage, quiz with quantities. If you have transitioned to numerals, quiz with numerals.
DIFFICULTIES
Finally, we just want to warn that teaching math will be a lot harder than teaching to read. There is more involved. If you are going to fail at anything it will be math, just due to the work involved. If there is any area that we advise to get our help and not do it yourself, it is teaching math.
END OF PRIMARY SCHOOL PREP DIY MATH GUIDE