Entry 2 | BORING First night - NOT!

When was the last time, I got thrilled over what was taught in class? Hmm… YESTERDAY! I lost all my energy solving the Mathematical problems last night that I ended up with none by the time the class ended. That explains why I only blog today! Hah!

Problems came after one another. No. Not the kind of problems that worry you, causing you to have sleepless nights. They were good problems. Good problems that put members together to think critically. Good problems that led us to come up with different solutions. Good problems that involve cognition.

How many letters do you have in your name? Which of those letters do you think is the 99^th? My name is Herma. There are five letters in my name and the letter ‘r’ is the 99^th. No matter what method I used from the 5 methods introduced by Dr Yeap yesterday, the 99^th is still ‘r’.

 

Find the connection or pattern in each method to facilitate your 99^th!

Problem 2 was my favourite! I will save talking about that at the end of my ramblings today. Now, read on. J

For problem 3, you got to imagine a truckload of paper if you are an American. A lorryload of paper if you are a Singaporean. Get it? Truckload? American? Lorryload? Singaporean? Oh well! Just imagine a big vehicle full of paper.

The question is… How long does it take for both machines, working at the same time, to shred one truckload of paper? Oh man! When was the last time I did a problem sum? Many years ago?

My group had a different answer from the correct one. Knowing that one of the machines (Let’s call it Machine A) takes 4 hours to shred 1 truckload of paper, we concluded that in 2 hours, Machine A will be able to shred ½ truckload of paper. The other machine (This one, we call it Machine B OK?) takes 2 hours to shred 1 truckload of paper. So, altogether, while Machine A worked hard to shred ½ truckload of papers in 2 hours, Machine B shredded 1 truckload of paper with the same timing. Thus, we thought,

2 hours = ½ truckload of papers (Machine A) + 1 truckload of papers (Machine B) = 1 ½ truckload of papers (3 units represented by ½ truckload of papers each)

So if it is just 1 truckload of paper we are talking about here, we took 2 units out of the 3 units (2 units represented 1 truckload of papers).

The equation à 3 divide by 2 = 1 1/2  hour

We thought we thought deeply. We explained our reasoning but well, we did not get it right but that is alright. When it comes to Math, we explore, guess and check!

We thought inventively when it came to Problem 4. Tangrams!

We made rectangles with different shapes. Yes, big rectangles. Small rectangles. Those were all “spatial” ideas. The foundation of children’s early cognitive development is spatial thinking. Do you know that research has showed that working with and combining shapes improves the Math skill and IQ of the young children?

Yikes! 50 minutes to 2nd day of this module. Let me wrap off this blog with my favourite Problem 2.

First, watch this video at this link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9OqKyfytOvA

Are you wondering how this is done? Let me show you a fast one!

Now who in the world has created this trick? GENIUS!

P/S: Urgh! I cannot upload the video as of now! I'll be back!