Chinese For K1

[Ellphie]

Hi Yellow Beetle - There is 3 kids in the Abacus class and it is conducted on very Sunday @11am and it is a 2hours session.  The fee is S$100/- per month.

[Alaska]

I enrolled my daughter when she was K1 for abacus for 1 term.

For the first 10 sessions were OK. After a while, I realised how can a 5-year old child knows counting 3+5+4=? using abacus as a counting tool. I wonder she knows what is the meaning of +. I also asked myself, the child rely heavily on the abacus tool. What happened if there is no tool available?

I realised that I am not training my children to be a calculator. I prefer them to learn mathematics by understanding concepts . After 3 mths of abacus, I enrolled her to MPM maths. Until today, she can count very fast too. Even the problems are being twist around, she managed to find her way out to solve.

To my surprise, a 6-yr old kid knows how to do multiplication? I doubt so if the question turns the other way round.

[Ellphie]

I think besides using the tool, they will also be trained to use brain to calculate..this is what I have thought of earlier cos if there is no tool, how they count?  But the teacher say that for a start, they use the tool but at a later stage, they will train the brain to do it..i dun know how it be done...just try out first..anyway my kid enjoy it...so why not.

[Alaska]

2008 Primary 5 Maths exam paper will be divide to paper 1 and paper 2. Calculators will be used in paper 2.

Calculators are allowed means questions are no longer straight forward. Think long term for P5 & P6 syllabus, answers are no longer taken from text-books anymore. Text books during exam is totally useless.

It is good to train the children using analytical thinking skills to solve problems rather than straight-forward solving.