A couple of months ago hubby decided to take Ebi-kun to a football match and since then he has become obsessed, he is up at 5.30am charging up and down the living room playing footie - his desk is now a goal and blue bear is the goalie. He goes mad if his football shirt is still in the wash since he wants to wear it 24/7! So, Saturday we took him to our friend footie class, Dave is a qualified coach and runs a class for kids, Ebi-kun LOVED it so when we get back from the UK we will try and take him more often, he didn't really 'get' all the exercises and games but it was his first time he did get 10 out of 10 for enthusiasm :o)
I decided to jump on the footie bandwagon and made up a math activity using some football buttons. I wrote some 'sums' onto green card and had the answer cards on yellow (no reason for the colours, just what was handy). First he counted out the number of footballs according to the problem then wrote down the problem on his math sheet. 
All was going well until he came across two sums which added up to the same number - I deliberetly put these in. It totally threw him, he couldn't understand why 2 + 8 was the same as 3 + 7. I worked with him and made up lots of examples but he still wasn't convinced. The funny thing was, I was telling my mom about it and she had been baby sitting Ebi-kun's cousins the day before and she had been doing similar work with Declan and exactly the same thing happened, anyone else had this happen?
Josh was interested that they added up to the same sum but did not need convincing. There is a bead work I saw somewhere that might help...here it is!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.absorbentminds.co.uk/acatalog/info_M_12_111.html
Looks easy to make!
ohh thank you for the link, you really are the queen of links!
ReplyDeleteI've run into this in my classroom too. The children seem to think they have made a mistake. I've found that it really helps to point out or ask the child to find a "pattern" on the addition finger board. Soon after, they realize that the whole board is a diagonal pattern.
ReplyDeleteAlternatively (or depending upon the expertise of the student), you can use the addition strip board equivalent exercise. Let's see how many equtions add up to the number 12!
Hey! I came across your blog and I find it very interesting :-D
ReplyDeleteI'm a Pre-K teacher and when introducing sums we use linking blocks to figure out the many ways we can make a number (5= 2+3, 4+1, etc). Maybe this activity can help you too.