Preschool learning activities may be the last thing on a busy mother’s mind when one has to cope with daily endless chores. Often parents ask for homework for their children from their teachers particularly in mathematics but it becomes another headache for both the mother and the child. However, if homework can be turned to play, then the scenario changes.
If play is work for your child then daily chores can be play time for a busy mother with her kids.
Learning mathematics is not just about memorizing numbers and dimensions; the reasoning process involved in primary mathematics is the basis of developing thinking and inquiry skills. The best way to learn mathematics is through everyday play and routines that convey mathematical concepts in an entertaining way.
Playing preschool learning games and activities in an entertaining way need not be expensive or confined to a certain time or a specific place. The time of interaction we have with our children during the day provides us with excellent opportunities to teach them and develop their skills.
These games can be played in the kitchen and even in the supermarket.
Whether it is the kitchen or the supermarket, every activity can become a means of learning primary math concepts like counting and sorting. The adults involved in this play should realize their role is restricted to providing the means to play. Unless the child's natural curiosity is allowed to direct the learning process, it cannot be called learning through play.
Mathematics in the supermarket
The visit to the supermarket can be a great learning experience. With some imagination, it becomes a place where children can reinforce in a practical way some of the most important concepts they learn in the classroom. The supermarket allows them to relate the concepts they learn to real life. As we adults shop for food in the supermarket we teach them not only the concepts of mathematics, but also concepts of geography, science and nutrition. A powerful link is made with learning and living.
The supermarket provides ample opportunity to demonstrate the principles of mathematics in real life. Children, depending on their age can learn the concepts of division by watching and helping their parents make change, select items, total their costs etc. They can make the concepts of addition and subtraction real to children.
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A group of primary and preschool teachers following a Higher National Diploma Course at the ICBT Bambalapitiya spent some time at a supermarket near their campus to explore ways and means of using a visit to the supermarket as a learning activity for children in the age group of 3 to 8 years. Some examples of the school syllabus material that can be learnt in the supermarket were suggested.
Goods in a supermarket are generally divided into categories according to types, prices and other classification. Cristella, one of the teachers who studied how things are sorted out and kept in an orderly manner said the child could learn the concept of classifying and sorting by observing these.
Numbers
One of the basic concepts children have to learn in mathematics is number conservation -- the fact that a number always represents the same number, irrespective of whether it is seen in school or during everyday life. Let children learn that number 5 always means 5, whether it is 5 flowers, 5 cups or 5 blocks. Another teacher Ruvindi suggested that the child should be given a sheet of paper written from 1 – 20 and can put a tick against the numbers identified during their visit to the supermarket. They can look at the price tags of the food items and read them out loud and also look at the numbers on the food items.
Counting
Vidurangani, another teacher suggested that children should be encouraged to count at the supermarket. The number of tins on a rack or the number of red coloured bottles on a rack, big boxes and small boxes or the number of fish on a tray. Also the number of times they see a particular number such as 2 over and over again.
Measuring
Understanding units such as centimetres and metres and inches and kilograms and grams are also important in mathematics at primary level. Fathimath Shahida suggested this could be done in the supermarket by asking the children to measure various objects such as a tooth brush, bottle, or even carrots. The children should be taught the correct way to measure in class before coming into the supermarket.
Calculations
Simple calculations could be done in the supermarket, suggested Rukshani. “The number of strawberry ice cream containers and mango ice cream containers can be counted and some of them could be removed and put into the cart. The children could be asked to find out how many containers are remaining [subtraction]. The children could also be asked to find out the total number of strawberry and mango ice cream containers in the refrigerator [addition].
Sizes
The idea of big, bigger, biggest; small, smaller, smallest is another concept that has to be learnt at preschool level. Yohani for example suggested that packets of icing sugar of different sizes [500g packet and 250 g packet] could be shown to the children and the concept of what is heavier could be learnt. Bags of rice weighing 10 kg, 5 kg and 1 kg etc could also be shown.
At the fruits section, watermelons of different sizes could be shown to reinforce what has been learnt in school.
Usually parents are so engrossed in their shopping that they hardly take any notice of their children. If these exercises are done in the supermarket the parents will be forced to communicate with and help their children to increase their vocabulary.
Shapes
Parents could also help the child understand different shapes- thin, fat, and short and long; circle triangle, square and rectangle - found in the preschool level and primary level. Harshini explained how a child could be prompted to pick a triangle, hexagon, rhombus from the items in the chocolate section and also a variety of shapes such as squares, circles, ellipses and rectangles can be observed in the array of ice cream products in the freezer section. Rare shapes such as heart or torus can be found in toiletries or household area.
ICT
Information Communication Technology is closely associated with both the supermarket and primary mathematics and Shaida was interested in how the check-out section could help the children to understand the use of ICT. The cash machine is a good place to learn about Information Communication Technology.
Here information regarding goods is fed into the machine via a keyboard and appears on the screen and at the same time the billing machine pops out a receipt with all the information. The keyboard is similar to computer keyboard and it is a good opportunity to introduce this concept to the child.
Matching pictures
Naddesha suggested that the parents pick up a promotional brochure and ask the child to identify the corresponding objects on the racks of the supermarket. As homework the child could be given the brochure and the adult could help the child find the objects in the kitchen similar to the objects in the brochure. This would help the child to improve his or her knowledge about colours, shapes, identifying similarities and differences etc.
Supermarkets are great classrooms. Parents with imagination can benefit greatly from developing creative games for their children as they do grocery shopping. The lessons that can be learnt from the supermarket range from basic lessons to complex ones, and can lay the groundwork for important subject areas in the life of a child particularly mathematics.
(Learners for ICBT who contributed to this article were: Fathimath Shahida, Shaida Cassim, Ruvindi B. Perera, Vidurangani Fonseka, Naddesha Yurangi, Harshini Palipane, Christella Sivapragasam, Yohani de Silva and Ruckshani Wijesinghe) |
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