Haven't been able to blog much lately. I've been getting the 'going out' itch i.e. I've been going out quite a lot these days. I enjoyed today's class, homeschool mums need to enjoy homeschool too to continue inspiring themselves. We did an experiment on molecules; took two bottles of carbonated water, opened one and put a balloon on it, shook it a little and put it in a bowl of warm water. Voila! the kids learn about how air molecules take up space, are different from water molecules and how heat help to speed up their movement.
Inspired by a newspaper article on how parents today are willing to fork out money to send their kids to classes which teach table manners, I read a book on it for storytime which I found in the library yesterday. From the book, we did a drawing of how silverware is arranged during a meal and I got them laminated for the children to use as placemats during their meals. A wonderful idea I got from other Montessori mums.
We then proceeded with my presentations; division of a fraction by a whole number for Ihsan, dynamic subtraction with golden beads for Umayr and the tens board for Sofiyya. I used the fraction pieces to explain the lesson to Ihsan. It's like dynamic processes in that you change them for smaller denominations before you can distribute to each skittle that represents the divisor.
What was hard to grapple was the symbolic part of it. Ihsan couldn't understand why we multiply the inverse of the divisor. I tried to make it more concrete to him by relating it to how the denominator increase by the amount of the divisor as seen with the materials.
I must admit that the process of carrying down the denominator of the fraction when the divisor is placed below to show the process of division make me myself question my mechanical understanding of this. I'm not looking forward to dividing a fraction with a fraction at the moment.
Umayr wasn't as defiant on doing his processes today but I took some time with Ihsan that by the time I reached Sofiyya she was already out of her flow and making silly antics like looking through her messed up hair when I presented to her. She's lucky that I think her the most adorable thing in the world.
Inspired by a newspaper article on how parents today are willing to fork out money to send their kids to classes which teach table manners, I read a book on it for storytime which I found in the library yesterday. From the book, we did a drawing of how silverware is arranged during a meal and I got them laminated for the children to use as placemats during their meals. A wonderful idea I got from other Montessori mums.
We then proceeded with my presentations; division of a fraction by a whole number for Ihsan, dynamic subtraction with golden beads for Umayr and the tens board for Sofiyya. I used the fraction pieces to explain the lesson to Ihsan. It's like dynamic processes in that you change them for smaller denominations before you can distribute to each skittle that represents the divisor.
What was hard to grapple was the symbolic part of it. Ihsan couldn't understand why we multiply the inverse of the divisor. I tried to make it more concrete to him by relating it to how the denominator increase by the amount of the divisor as seen with the materials.
I must admit that the process of carrying down the denominator of the fraction when the divisor is placed below to show the process of division make me myself question my mechanical understanding of this. I'm not looking forward to dividing a fraction with a fraction at the moment.
Umayr wasn't as defiant on doing his processes today but I took some time with Ihsan that by the time I reached Sofiyya she was already out of her flow and making silly antics like looking through her messed up hair when I presented to her. She's lucky that I think her the most adorable thing in the world.
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