Monday, December 5, 2016

How to Teach 6 Essential Mathematical Skills to Kids

Most of the kids start learning the two very basic mathematics operations –addition and subtraction. They perform some little additions and subtraction on a regular basis. The mother tells her child that she has two chocolates. One chocolate is given to the child. Now, how many chocolates do the mother has? The kid immediately calculates and says “one”. The development of the ability to perform these operations is essential when the kid is ready for preschool. However, these are just basic operation.

There is a different kind of knowledge of mathematics that is required in an elementary school. The first-grade mathematics curriculum includes:

•    Verbally forward and backwards counting
•    Recognizing numerals
•    Understanding patterns, shapes and sizes
•    Identifying less than or greater numbers

Essential Mathematical Skills to Kids

The ability to understand elementary school mathematics depends on the following skills:

Number Sense 

Number sense means the ability to count accurately in forward and backwards. Once the kid learns to count, we can make the number sense more complex by introducing relationships between numbers such as subtraction, addition, greater than, less than and more.

Number Sense
 Spatial Sense 

In the mathematics, we call it geometry. However, spatial sense means introducing kids to shapes positions, directions, movement and sizes. They know that the ball they are playing with is spherical in shape.

Measurement 

Measurement includes finding weight, length, width or height of an object and quantity of a substance. However, it is not about teaching how to measure length in centimeters, meters or other units. A mother is cooking banana crumb muffins for her kid. She can ask her kid to bring 1 tablespoon butter.

Representation 

It is about implementing number and spatial senses in the real life. A family of five is going to picnic. The mothers asks the child to bring five plates for the five members of the family, three larger plates for three adults and two smaller plates for himself and his little sister. The kid will go to the kitchen to bring five plates and out of these five two will be smaller in size.

Estimation 

Estimation is the ability to guess. This guess can be about the size, shape, length, height, width, weight or quantity of a substance or object. With estimation, you can teach words like bigger, smaller, more than, less than, nearer and farther.

Problem Solving 

With problem solving skills, a kid learns to identify the cause of the problem.  Kids can learn to solve one problem in different ways. The problem solving skills includes using the past knowledge and logical thinking to find the best solution for a problem

When parents are busy in their professional commitments, teachers in the best schools in Dubai can teach these skills to kids. There are several good nurseries in Dubai in which kids can learn these skills through games and fun activities. However, it is the job of the parents to search and compare nurseries and preschools for their kids.

  

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