Mavi didn’t like math. When he was around 5yrs old, he would rather read books than work with math. He’s excuse would always be “I’m tired” or “it’s difficult”. I can truly understand him though. I didn’t enjoy math when I was younger. Until I stepped into secondary school and discovered why we need math.
So instead of forcing him to solve arithmetic problems and giving him number activities, I exposed him to real life problems so he can appreciate math. I made him understand WHY WE NEED TO LEARN NUMBERS AND MATH. We would go to the groceries and count our items all together, doing addition and subtraction in between. Of course, he’s not aware we’re doing math, all he knows is that he’s helping Mommy do some groceries. At home, I secretly incorporate addition and subtraction by counting his missing pens, his toys and how many books he has read.
He loves the real life math! He can’t stand arithmetic problems but he enjoys real life problems. So what I did was create a bunch of colorful cards for us to work on, making sure there’s pictures (and we mostly use counters as well) to make it attractive. In the problems, I used his friends’ name so he’ll like it, and of course he finds it funny! He kept asking for more, more questions as he liked solving the problems. And that was the game changer.
Through these problem solving cards, he was able to appreciate math, and could now understand why he needs to practice arithmetic. He loves to solve math problems these days on his own and still loves solving problems.
So I created these problem solving cards for Pre-K students. It contains:
- 1 step problem solving for addition and subtraction
- 12 unique questions for addition within 10 (with pictures)
- 12 unique questions for subtraction within 10 (with pictures)
- 12 fill-in questions for addition to let the parents change the numbers for more practice (for advanced students, based on the questions with pictures). You can use counters for this.
- 12 fill-in questions for subtraction to let the parents change the numbers for more practice (for advanced students, based on the questions with pictures). You can use counters for this.
Mavi worked on these cards when he was 5-6yrs old. Though this is intended for 5-6yrs old children, older or younger kids can still use the cards as a practice material. Hope you like it and find it useful like we do. Thanks!
