Before and after numbers

Pix for representational purposes only

Its amazing how naturally all these things come to us. But try explaining to a 5 year old what the logic is when you say 39 comes before 40. When you are faced with questions on how four and zero goes back and becomes three and nine, you will know what I mean. She already had 20 to 0 down pat as far as backward numbers was concerned, but when it came to understand what comes before 30, 20, 70 or any of these kinds of numbers it did not help to say -"4 and 0, when you see any number like this and you have to say the backward numbers, in place of 4 put 3 and in place of zero put 9" and then expect the little one to remember this for all these kinds of numbers.

Honestly I did try this at first but it did not work. And then one day long after she passed out of LKG and was on her summer holidays, the grandparents decided to get her a snakes and ladder game to play in the evenings. I realized that this was an ideal way to start small time revisions while playing. So each time we rolled the dice, I told her that she had to tell me the before and the after numbers and only then could she move forward. And she did. Of course she did get some of them wrong initially, but when you couple it with the fun of rolling a die and moving on numbers, she began to remember which number related to her winning and managed to pick up the sequence.Playing this once a day really helped and the little one has no idea that I am actually conning her n remembering her numbers. 

Number sequences

Pix for representational purposes only

My daughter talks a lot and her volley of questions can be really difficult to handle. So naturally when it came to numbers, logic always seem to slip away by her as to how 11 came after 12 and 31 came after 30. Its only when I sat down with her to try and explain things about sequences, that I realized 5-year-olds just can't grasp why 11 comes after 12 and why 31 comes after 30. Think about it.. can you come up with one sane explanation?

So the only thing that I could think of was bringing out the Housie game that we had inside and give her the bag of 90 coins. I just told her to pick a coin and place it on the board. It took a long while, but once she was done, I asked her to find all the ones (1, 11, 21, 31..) and then told her to find all the 10s (10, 20, 30...) AND THEN... whew! showed her how 11 comes after 12 and 31 comes 30..

The board helped her see an order in the way numbers are placed and soon she was able to put 2 and 2 together literally. And with that we had the number sequencing done. What I didn't realize then is that it also helped with the backward numbers and before after numbers that she was going to learn next.

Backward numbers was just about reading the board the other way round... but before/after numbers unbelievably turned out to be a whole new ball game. 

Writing in Mirror Images

One of the first things I noticed when the little one started writing her first alphabets and numbers was her tendency to write mirror images - 3 would be E, C would be turned around, b would d and so on. It worried me for quite a while. I am one of those mothers who is hooked on to Google (being a journalist makes it a career for me) and all those articles I have read of autism, attention deficiency, compulsive this and compulsive that kind of freaked me out.

So what I did is sat down with my daughter's earlier Montessori teacher and tried to understand what exactly is the deal. She explained to me that structured learning, especially for a child who has come out of the Montessori style of learning can take a bit of getting used to. Its the same case with a child who may have come out of those rote-learning places as well. Just because your child writes a few letters the other way round does not mean there is something wrong with her. It just means she is experimenting with all that she is learning and wants to know why 3 can't be E or the other way round.

What worked for me was a kind of sequencing of numbers. So I told her something to the effect of "1 2 3 face one way because they play together - 4 5 6 look the other way till 1 2 and 3 are ready... that's why 7 looks at 6, 8 sits with a big face, 9 makes a bubble which bursts into a 1 and 0 making 10.

Not saying that this worked miracles the first time round, but it helped get her attention and helped her view numbers in a more playful manner. She took a while getting the sequence right, which is natural. It can get very annoying a times when the mirror images come back after a day or two of not practicing, but then we must remember that we have almost several generations worth of practice behind us and they are just starting.

I tried not to make something like a "study time" but included number games at times when she was most pliable. For us it was bath time - so  1- 10 magnets in her bath tub to play around with worked. Teaching her to play UNO and recognizing the difference between 6 and 9 because of the line worked. Air writing worked well for me too. 

Baby steps in schooling

Honestly speaking I had a pretty easy ride in school and college. Thinking back now I know I did the ICSE board till 7th... came back during the Gulf War, and continued my education in State Board. What was most difficult in all this was studying Kannada from scratch and answering board exams in three months flat and actually passing. Right through college was a straight A student and overall achiever (not boasting, but just a background) and so when it came to my daughter I didn't really think too hard...

I know scores of mothers who ransack the net and bombard "senior" parents with questions on which board is good - state, CBSE, ICSE, IB and what not. We managed to get the little one into Sacred Hearts which even now we are told is a really good school. We didn't struggle at all to do that. I knew it was ICSE, but didn't really think much of it, till I managed to let the other moms psyche me out on how difficult ICSE is "multiplication and computers in UKG", "exam stress", "things are cool till 4th and then you had it" and the like.. it started worrying me a bit. My junior is quite the happy go lucky and I didn't want to bog  her down in any way and so I too started scouring the net for info on how to work things out. Finally realized the only info around is mock question papers 6th standard onwards. But what about the little things - like how do you deal with kids writing alphabets in mirror images, or explaining to them why the phonetics of "v" and"w" sound the same but are used differently and why in the world 23 comes before 24.

And so I thought I would chronicle my adventures with ICSE board as I am going through. I have no clue what's in store and how its going to pan out... but here is my two-bit on all that I am facing and how I am handling it.

Basic facts that I have accumulated first
Why ICSE is good
- The subject range may be vast going forward, but it gives you a better grounding as your proceed
- A lot of importance is given to practicals than theory
- Encouragement is given to understanding and learning as far as possible. You can't escape rote no matter what
- If you or somewhere along the line junior plans to go abroad for graduation, ICSE stands a better chance since it is believed to be on par with foreign curriculums.
- though it did not help much in answering competitive exams in India till now, it is slowly getting there.

As for the bad - every stream has its bad point, and now that I am in this line, am not going down that road!