When I was in nursery school or probably in kindergarten, I remember that’s when I learned the most basic numbers from one to ten, and probably up to 20. Then I started having a hard time dealing with numbers that are greater than 20 for some reason. Having a tutor back then is not a popular idea back in the day and it costs a lot, so I didn't have any. But there are some things that helped me cope with the difficulty and eventually overcome it.
Learning Numbers Through Games
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| Image from Flickr by Lalney Powell |
When I was around 7 years old, that’s when things started to get interesting. I remember my great-grandmother who visited us from Bohol taught me how to play bingo in our home in Batangas. It didn’t spark my interest at the moment, but since I was also bored, I just went along with it. She put out the bingo box that was stored on a shelf and we started to play. She taught me what the white circular plastics with numbers are for and we should follow a certain pattern on a card, and whoever gets the pattern first wins.
It was quite memorable for me because bingo also helped me familiarize higher numbers from twenty and up unexpectedly. As I said, I was never good at numbers when I was a child, but I guess playing the bingo game every day by looking at the numbers on the card and wanting to win got my senses excited that made me want to learn all the numbers.
Then when I reached 2nd grade, I started having my own milk money for school. I started having 20 pesos daily. So in that budget, I can already buy a glass of orange juice, a ham and cheese sandwich, and candies/chips for the loose change. Wow, just thinking back made me realize that 20 pesos is more than enough to make me happy during recess time. I didn’t have to worry about my transportation just yet because I had a school bus. So at that time, I unknowingly memorized the prices of the items that I buy every day so it was also good exercise with numbers in memory.
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| 10-20 game |
Lastly, the game called “10-20” was very popular when I was young. It’s a game where we use a long garter tied in an oblong shape, then both ends of the oblong is placed on the waist of two kids standing up parallel to each other with about a meter in between, and then one player would jump on the garter with a certain pattern counting from 10-20-30-40-50-60-70-80-90; a very good practice for the line of 10’s.
So far, that’s what I have done during my childhood that helped me with numbers. Well, I’m not a Mathematician nor an engineer, but I just thought my post could give you some thoughts on how to spark your kids’ interest in numbers without hiring a tutor. You know what they say, the best teacher in life is experience.
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