nkthen:Here's how you can use the model method to answer this problem sum :I come across this problem sum for P1. Yes, P1:
\"There are 10 sweets and chocolates. 7 of them are sweets, how many more sweets are there than chocolates?\"
The guide gives them 2 steps, with all the fill-in-the-blanks.
But, my boy cannot understand the question. I tried using actual sweets and chocolates to illustrate, he still cannot understand.
How do you teach this type of problem sum?
Step 1 : Draw 10 squares (linked up). Explain to your child that these 10 squares each represent one sweet or chocolates.
Step 2 : Colour 7 of the squares (eg. blue). Explain to your child that the blue squares represent the sweets. To reinforce that your child understand, you can ask him to count the number of blue squares and tell you how many sweets there are.
Step 3 : Colour the remaining squares a different colour (e.g. red). Explain to your child that the red squares represent the chocolates. Can we find out now how many chocolates there are? Visually, your child should be able to tell you \"3\" straight away.
Step 4 : Even though your child might be able to tell you the answer by looking at the visual, it is important that your child be able to tell you how he arrived at it. Go through the first 3 steps again. We have 10 candies. Some sweets, some chocolates. We show it using these squares. One square for one candy. Blue squares for sweets, red squares for chocolates. How did we know that there are 3 chocolates? We \"rub away\" or \"tear away\" the blue squares from the long strip of squares. When we \"rub away\" or \"tear away\", we \"minus\". Therefore, we know there are 3 chocolates because we minus 7 from 10 (or write down \"10 - 7\").
Step 5 : After you have established step 4, proceed to draw another two strips. This time, the top strip consists of 7 blue squares (representing the sweets). The bottom strip consists of 3 red squares (representing the chocolates). Make sure the blue and red squares corresponds to each other. Ask the question \"which one is more? Sweets or chocolates?\" From the visual, the child should be able to tell that the longer strip i.e. sweets has more.
Step 6 : How many more sweets? Visually point to your child that one chocolate corresponds to one sweet by pointing to one red square and link it up to the blue square above. Point the portion whereby there are some blue squares that does not have a red square corresponding to it. This is the portion that shows how many more sweets there are. Visually your child can tell you \"4\". Again, need to help child understand how he arrived at the answer \"4\". Explain that again, those sweets that has a chocolate corresponding to it, we can \"rub away\" or \"tear away\". Remind that \"rub away\" means we \"minus\". Therefore, we minus \"3\" from \"7\" because out of the 7, only 3 sweets corresponds to the 3 chocolates.
Hope this helps. It's easier if the visuals can be shown to you. But I don't know how to draw it on this forum. You can pm me and I can email you the visuals if you need me to.
and am also now going through it with my daughter (she's in K1 this year), I thought I'll share with you the little I know.