session 1

"These cards are obedient cards, when you say O-N-E, ta-da, 1 will appear in the next card.
After you throw the card with number 1 on it, you continue T-W-O, ta-da, 2 will appear in the next card,
and this continues until you get 10."
Dr Yeap mentioned in class.

WOW!!! AMAZING!
It was somewhat like watching a magic performance.

My group members and I were exploring and figuring out how to arrange the cards in such a way that we can perform such a "magic" trick too.
Indeed, there is a pattern to it.
and this is what we had found out:


I am sooooo going to amaze my children back at school!

Anyway , this was what happen in school today, a lot of "WOW" moments!

Today was an introduction to the course.
There wasn't a specific topic that Dr Yeap talked about.

It was more of creating a mathematical climate in the classroom.

We were presented with 4 problems today,
one of which was the card trick that was presented earlier.

Another was a problem that can be found in the textbook.
It was about two shredding paper machine, one can shred a truckload of paper within 4 hours, while another can shred the same amount within 2 hours. If both machines were run at the same time, how long do it needs to shred a truckload of paper. With logical deducing and trial and error, we manage to solve the problem as a class.

Another problem was count the letters in your name in a certain manner (to and fro) and conclude which letter is counted 99th?

 

 
Dr Yeap get us to explore and share with the class how we derive the answer.
Amazing how we use different angles to look at things.

We were then tasked to find out which letter is counted 99th in our names.
As my name is 6 letters (HUI MIN), my answer will be same as lecture's (Ban Har).

Hence, I helped my partner with finding which letter is counted 99th in her name.
In the midst, we do observe several patterns such as multiple of 12 will stay at the same column. Besides, the numbers in the ones digit in the letter H column consist of even number and will only repeat twice. (2, 2, 4, 4, 6, 6, 8, 8, 0, 0)

To end it off, we were given tangram, and we are tasked to make a rectangle.
 

This is me making rectangles using different number of tangrams.

3 tangrams:




5 tangrams:

 

 

6 tangrams:



 7 tangrams:


It was such a great experience to manipulate and explore the materials and find solutions by ourselves instead of being spoon-feed with answers.

Like what Dr Yeap mentioned at the end of the session, quoting Dienes, Vygoksky and Bruner,
-children learnt through 3 phrases.
1) "Play" which means exploring
2) Structured learning
3) Practise

-Adults scaffold children's learning

-Children learn through CPA
C for concrete materials
P for pictorial
A for abstract

I find it very much true, as I experience this lesson myself.

I think it will be a helpful lesson for parents to go through this process themselves to better know how children think and react as they "put themselves into the children's shoe".

Besides, with an open mind and positive attitude, it is easier to impart knowledge and skills to the young ones.

Signing off-
Teacher Hui Min