Cass The Number Cruncher

Cass is still very much into number crunching ever since she got hooked on solving Math sums more than a year ago.

Now that she has mastered additions (up to 5 digits and even more sometimes), she has moved to subtraction and is now pretty adept with numbers involving hundreds. N

Cass' latest craze is doing mental subtraction with numbers involving 100 with a two-digit number (eg. 100-26, 100-36, 100-73, etc), done without doing any written calculation. She can come up with the correct answer in just seconds using her mind along with her fingers.  I am impressed that she has now beaten her 2nd sister and at times, she is even faster than her eldest sister in mental subtraction. And she has not even attended any Math enrichment class or mental arithmetic lessons.  But she told me adamantly that when she goes to che che's school next year, she wants to join the mental arithmetic class and take part in Math competitions!  I'll see....

Cass bugs me to give her Math sums whenever she is bored. She hates being bored and cannot stand doing nothing. She loves to work her brain up with Math sums.  In a way, she is making me work out my brain too and I have to work my brain really hard to get the answer before she does!  All done without any calculator, on the go!  Even when I am driving! lol!

I am now training Cass multiplication. As of today, she has mastered multiplication by 2, 5 and 10. She is now working on 3s. This is by far my proudest achievement from Cass and honestly, I did not do much to stir up her interest in Math. I have very little time to read to her, what more teach her Math. It is during the free time that we have while waiting for our food to arrive when we eat out, in the car and in our hospital visits that I teach her Math.  Hopefully Cass' interest in Math will never wane. 




Cass at 6 years 3 month.
She brings along her Math workbooks whenever we go out!  And nope, it is not my idea ok.  She does it out of her love for numbers! :D

Learning Numbers From Sudoku

Not that she can recognize all the numbers, but Baby likes to pour out her che che's Sudoku game and then slots the squares back one by one into the box. As she slots them back, I will ask her to find me a certain number. Fun way for this fella to learn her numbers. And oh yes, the stairs climbing method of learning numbers has proven to be very effective. At 3YO, she can now recognize the number 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Why ends at 5? That's because we live on the 5th floor haha! Next time, we have to climb all the way up to the 10th floor and then walk down so that she recognizes the remaining numbers too. Plus it's a fun way of exercise for the girls and they love this style of flexing their limbs!

Teaching Sherilyn Money

One of the topics covered in Sherilyn's recent mid term exam for 6YO pre-schoolers is money, i.e. all the denominations, how to add up Ringgit note and sen and questions in comprehension format. The standard is equivalent to that of Primary 2 kids. I remember I had a hard time teaching Alycia 2 years ago. It's the same with Sherilyn now. I had to use real money to explain the concept to her, which I think helped her to understand better. Hmm, I wonder why the kindergarten teacher did not take the effort to ensure that all the kids understood before they tested them on this topic. I'll bet other kids had a tough time grasping the whole concept too.

During revision with Sherilyn, as usual the impatience in me made me blew my top when this rascal just could not get it right. Her attention span is very, very short and her mind is always wandering far away. My SIL from Singapore who was up in KL came to my rescue. Then my mum. At long last, she finally got it right with the help of 3 tutors. She scored a 96% for her Math!

... and little nosy parker wants to be involved in all her jie jies' activities too!

Practising Math And Time Telling the eWay

I recently found a very good website for kids to practise solving Math questions. KidsNumbers.com is a free math resource designed by teachers, specifically for students and children of all ages. It's a place where students can practice all aspects of math, including addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, in a fun and stress free way. Both Alycia and Sherilyn love solving Math equations at this website and can sit in front of the PC for at least an hour solving Math questions. I can even use their free Worksheet Generator to create customized worksheets.




Alycia having fun solving Math questions and brushing up her time-telling / clock reading skill which she is still not perfect yet at KidsNumbers.com.