Maths - A starting point.

Oh boy.

It was decided that Jonty would start Term 2 of Grade 1 as he's already covered quite a bit of maths in his Thai kindergarten. Today I discovered that "covered the material" is not the same as "mastered the material" ...

Sadly this was a reminder of the shortfalls in the Thai education system. For one - problem solving does not seem to feature. The WES maths curriculum that we're using DOES.

Because we are skipping Term 1 I decided to do some of the workshets and assessments provided... just to check if he really DOES have the concepts.

Jonty is a bright boy. Ask him what's 2 plus 2 and he'll laugh at you for asking such an easy question - he'll answer immediately and ask for another sum. Ask him this - which is what I did this afternoon - "if hot dogs cost 2 baht each and I buy 2 hot dogs, how much will I need to pay?"

5

2

3, 10, 1...

Aaaagh!

Never mind, we drew hot dogs, put price tags on them and he got that one easily enough. But then I asked the follow up question - "if you pay the owner 5 baht for those hot dogs, how much change will you get?"

Hits forehead, bangs head on desk, squints eyes, mutters to himself "think think think"!

Okay, time out. Take a Marie biscuit and milk break. During the break ask him casually 'what's 5 minus 4?' ... does not even pause: "1".

He can also easily subtract 3 from 5, but don't ask him "how many more is 5 than 3". Its a different way of thinking, and actually having to figure out what the problem is before he can solve it. The problem is not being neatly presented to him.

Well, I am sure we'll get there, and even in the short time we spent today I could see progress. But not without a degree of frustration on my part which I regret to say I did not hide very well.

There is work to do before we get into term 2, that's for sure! We had a good talk though, about the difference between Thai school and this work, and although Jonty still thinks we're making a monumental mistake wanting to home-school him, he's surprisingly enthusiastic about it.

Another problem is with the terminology. We've also only used "plus" and "minus" or "take away" at home. The new syllabus uses words and phrases like "add", "what's the total", "the difference" and "subtract". He's learning a whole new language.

I think I need to make some wall charts with all the different terms to help him remember.

On a more positive note, we played "shop shop" which was fun and he paid correctly and intelligently most of the time, although I could have easily swindled him when it came to giving him change! But at least that was fun.

I also played a game to see if he really knows the value of numbers, and he does.

He enjoyed a colouring in exercise where he had to match the numbers to the plants and then colour them in the colour indicated on the "seed" packet.

All in all it took about 35 minutes, including the cookie break which was probably the most productive time.