Recently I taught my son (grade 2) how to do subtraction of large numbers with borrowing. I am a high school math teacher, so I thought that teaching this subject would be a piece of cake. However, I didn’t realize that I would have to be this creative in order to actually get through to my son. Anyway, my method worked like a charm, so I’m posting it. It’s pretty basic, and I’m sure it has been widely used by good teachers (that really understand how to teach kids math), but in case you haven’t thought of this method, here it is.
Continue reading “How to teach kids long subtraction with borrowing”Curious George is not a Monkey!!!
“This is George. He lived with his friend, the man with the yellow hat. He was a good little monkey and always very curious.”
This is how most of my favourite stories start. I loved Curious George when I was a little girl, and even more when I grew up.
Continue reading “Curious George is not a Monkey!!!”Teacher Pay Scale Across Various provinces in Canada (Updated: 2021)
Periodically, I look how the different provinces’ rank in terms of paying for their teachers. When I started doing this comparison, I lived in Quebec. Then I updated the table in 2011, and shortly after that I moved to Alberta. (Sick and tired of getting the short end of the stick.) Now I’ve been working here in Alberta for the last 10 years, and finally I feel like I’m compensated properly, for all the work that I do.
Just to be consistent, I’m listing the salary for a teacher with 8 years of experience and a bachelor degree + 2 year teaching degree. Also, I am choosing jurisdictions in Canada that I wouldn’t mind moving to – mostly cities. But if you want to check your salary in the given province, the link should point you in the right direction.
Here are the teacher salaries in 2021.
Continue reading “Teacher Pay Scale Across Various provinces in Canada (Updated: 2021)”Should I teach my children to read as soon as possible?
Recently I had a conversation with a colleague of mine: She was appalled at an ad she saw on TV about a system to teach “babies” to learn to read (something like LeapFrog or Vtech). She said: “Why would anybody want to teach their baby to read?” As this statement was brought up in passing, and I was busy at the time doing something else, I just agreed and moved on with my life. But as the day went on, the statement kept bothering me and stuck with me.
Continue reading “Should I teach my children to read as soon as possible?”How to teach my young child to write and recognize letters?
Recently I’ve been trying to teach my two and a half year old child to learn some letters from the alphabet. I want him to learn to write his name, and at least recognize all the letters of the alphabet. I figure this is not too early for him as he is really into drawing and “reading” books and even pretending he is reading the letters. So everyday I sit with him at the table, like a big boy, and we do “school work” for about 1/2 an hour. It’s fun for him, because he thinks he’s like my older two sons, doing his homework. It’s mostly fun stuff we do anyway, and he has no clue that he is “learning” anything. For him it’s just quality fun time with his mom; for me it’s also quality one on one time with him, but also the sooner he learns the alphabet, the sooner he’ll be ready to start reading and therefore the sooner he’ll be an independent learner.
But let’s get back to how I actually teach him letters (and I did do this for my two older boys at around the same age: around 2 to 3 years old). Here are some tips I picked up from various places and just my own experience how best to teach really young kids to write / recognize letters:
Continue reading “How to teach my young child to write and recognize letters?”Mirror-Image Writing of Young Children
A couple years ago, my oldest son went to preschool. He was a bright kid, and also my first, so I spent a lot of time with him before hand, teaching him the letters, numbers, shapes, etc. By the time he started preschool, he knew all the letters, and of course he knew how to write his name beautifully. I was so proud of him, and was excited for him to go to school and continue his learning.
Continue reading “Mirror-Image Writing of Young Children”How to help young children learn math – Adding Finger Game
I am working on an adding game for very young kids (2 to 4 year olds). It is based on counting on fingers. Children learn how to add quickly if they start to recognize their hand and finger positions. For instance, children that are good at adding don’t need to count if they see three fingers on one hand, they just know it’s three. Similarly, it is beneficial for a budding child’s faster math skills, for him or her to knows that a full hand of five fingers and the other hand with three is eight, without counting. This game is designed such that the child gets a lot of practice with associating finger positions with the appropriate numbers.
Continue reading “How to help young children learn math – Adding Finger Game”Draw a Person Test (DAP) – A great way to tell a child’s intelligence
Recently I went to the doctor for my son’s yearly check-up. Our doctor is fantastic, and I am so lucky that I was fortunate enough to get him. Everytime we go, I learn something very interesting, this time was no exception.
The Doctor started asking standard medical questions: Was Jakub seriously ill this past year? Any ear infections? etc. Then he turned to his mental, social and physical development. And he asked me:
“Does Jakub know how to draw a person?”
Continue reading “Draw a Person Test (DAP) – A great way to tell a child’s intelligence”Why is play important?
A few years back I took a course on Expertise: how experts think, how they become experts, and what it means to be an expert. That course had a huge impact on my thinking. The huge revelation was that “Deliberate Practice” is the only thing that leads people to become experts in any field (Ericsson, 2006). So as the old saying says: “Practice makes perfect”.
But this practice needs to be “deliberate” which means several things, among them, there needs to be some sort of feedback mechanism (possibly a coach or a feedback of a musical instrument, or even a personal reflection). I always thought that practice is very important, but I never realized that this was really everything. There is no magic pill, no inherent talents, it’s pure practice – 10 000 hours of DELIBERATE practice.
Continue reading “Why is play important?”Math Teacher’s Bag-of-Tricks: How to make my class more entertaining?
Math can sometimes seem like a very dry subject… you can just have a pencil and paper to do it, and in order to become good at it, you need to do problem after problem: “Practice Makes Perfect” as they say. But as a math teacher, it is nice to have a bag of “math tricks” up your sleeve to show the actual beauty and interesting side of math.