We did a group work and had to find a place that we thought would be interesting to teach children Math concepts. Our focus was the K2 level and we decided to use the lamps in front of the Cathay at Dhoby Ghaut.
The lights were clumped in fives and there were squared and triangular tiles on the floor. We decided toteach the concept of skip counting in 5s. We thought of an opening activity for the lesson and came up with the main activity.
After that, as we looked around, we also managed to find other things like the railings, steps and pebbles that the children may use to reinforce the concept that we had in mind.
It was an interesting experience as we looked around the environment for teaching opportunities . I have used the environment as my "classroom" before, but that was more for Language and Science activities.
As far as I can remember, I have used the stairs outside my school, to do a lesson on ascending and descending order.The children had great fun and the experience left a deep impact on them as the children are able to remember the concept taught well.
Using the Math in the Environment lesson as one of the example to problem solving in Math, teacher could actually give children a simple task, after they understood skip counting in 5s well, to look for other opportunities in the same environment, to skip count in 2s or 10s.
There are 4 steps in problem solving process :-
1.Understanding the problem
2.Devising a plan
3. Carrying out the plan
4. Looking back
Children may use or may be guided through these 4 steps to find solutions to the problem posed by the teacher.
Through problem solving, children are given opportunities to make sense of their own's thinking and also to work out rationales behind their own decisions.
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