Counting to 10

Aloha teachers!

These days I've been experiencing how students are learning to add. Watching and helping them I have remembered how I learnt when I was a kid. I used to manage with abacus when I started but that is an old technique.

Nowadays, the children are learning to count out to 10 with some different methods and this one caught my attention.

This is the Magic Rainbow

We can see in the rainbow in the left, how the different numbers are getting together to get 10.

0+10=10     10+0=10

1+9=10     9+1=10

2+8=10     8+2=10

3+7=10     7+3=10

4+6=10     6+4=10

5+5=10     5+5=10

It's a visual resource that can help the students to understand adding fast and easily. They also use a number line (from 0 to 10). Once they have learnt this, they keep on practising with a hundred square, getting to know higher adds.

The hundred square is also very visual, here is an example of how it works:

Moreover than Maths lessons during the week, when the students come in the mornings, they start practising some adds in their little white boards with a marker.

I think maths must be treated in this way in order to get the best of our students. Apart from motivation, maths must be treated as a complement and not only as a subject in itself.

Thanks for reading.

Antonio.