Tuesday, January 15, 2008

The Number Game

XY was introduced to UNO cards last year. She’s still too young to understand and play by the rules so I created my own game. At the same time, I taught her numbering.

We only use the cards with numbers (0-9). After shuffling the cards, we’ll each take one and see whose card has a bigger number. The person with the bigger number keeps the opened cards. Then that person gets to draw first. If the numbers are the same, then we draw again, till there’s a difference. At the end of it, the person with the most cards wins. At first, she couldn’t tell which number is bigger. She has to count from 1 and whichever number that comes later is bigger. After a few days of playing (errr... more like training), she was able to tell... well, 90% of the time she gets it right. hehehe

Now that she’s quite good with the numbers in English, I started to teach her in Mandarin. She still has problems translating from Mandarin to English. She can recite from 1 to 10 in Mandarin but if I test her randomly, she’s not very sure. For example, if I ask her what’s qi1 in English, she can’t answer "seven" immediately. And we’re only talking about 1 to 10 here. 1, 2 and 3 - she’s very confident. 4 and 5 - sometimes unsure. 6 to 10 - she has to hide and count silently from 1 to give the answer. Looks like we need to "play" more.

~ creating our own game ~

And this is how didi plays with the cards...

~ making a mess ~

13 comments:

JK said...

Practice makes perfect. Do you know the "red dragonfly" series for starting your children on chinese reading? It's very good and I see lots of improvement in my eldest son after introducing him this series.

Anonymous said...

i must bring out my UNO cards edi

Anonymous said...

hehe..i ever use poker card to teach my girls numbering. It's fun sometimes.

slavemom said...

Joanne, I'll chk with hubs if he knows that. If not, I get more details from u ok?

Wen, I'm sure it'd be fun for Ian. Can Iris recog numbers edi?

Jess, learning thru play is fun for the kids.

Anonymous said...

My son can recognise numbers now but sometimes, he is not too sure about 9. Maybe because some 9s are written hook-like while others are not. So, that confuses him. ;)

Everyday Healy said...

I think XY is doing great! Bravo! :)

Anonymous said...

I love playing UNO! I think your kids will beat me flat now, because I have not been playing for ages!

Chinneeq said...

since they go by colour and numbers, can just play according to your own rule if they are too young to follow the actual uno rule :)

Health Freak Mommy said...

I should teach my kids UNO too. It was once my favorite card games :)

slavemom said...

Audrey, I guess that can be quite confusing hor.

Tq Aunty Healy! :)

Joyce, thx for dropping by. XY doesn't know how to play by the actual rules. So u've got plenty of time to practise. :D

Chin Nee, ya lor, the actual rules r too complicated for vy young children.

Shireen, it was our fav game in secondary schl too.

Jacss said...

u know what....my boys had been bugging me to get them the UNO cards which i've no idea where they learnt it from.

and i just sort of brushed aside the idea as i don't think they ever know how to play neither do I myself.

but now i think i shd consider getting it since i see that it can do a little bit of maths benefit ...better than getting any toys like power ranger of the sort hor.....

slavemom said...

Jac, maybe they've seen their frens playing in schl? If the rules r too complicated for them, can always change it to suit them. Yeah, u r right, it'll hv more educational value than power ranger/ultraman.

Peridot&Sapphire said...

aiyah... me idiot in UNO lah! I never know how to play any types of card games even I did play before buy i never have the heart to remember how to play them... Calculating? We use fingers and I keep on telling her from 1-10 like singing and write the numbers big big in a drawing book and encourage her to see and read by flipping the page... some sort like flash card approach