Sahaj Kothari
Did you grow up dreading the moment that it was time to do math? Were you baffled by basic concepts? Would you wake up in the middle of the night as an elementary student with cold sweats after having a nightmare about compound fractions? Well, you’re not alone, but there’s an exciting new development (that’s been around all along) which gives you an excuse to say a phrase that literally has never been relevant before:
“If you would’ve just let me play with LEGOs, I could’ve learned something.”
Regardless of your your mathematical ability, just let this soak in for a moment:
That was incredibly easy wasn’t it? Who knew LEGOs were this educational? No seriously, who? If you knew LEGOs could help this much, why did you keep it from so many children?!
Okay, I digress, but the minds at Scholastic just rolled out a little piece detailing how effective this method could be.
For instance: the “Part-Part-Total” method makes addition a breeze.
(6 + 2 = 8)
Scholastic explains:
“…decomposing numbers is a key component of building the number sense needed for arithmetic operations.”
This makes the idea of “Square Numbers” seem so much less daunting than memorizing a multiplication table. Just count up the total.
A teacher who spent many years as a third-grade teacher says on Scholastic that LEGOs can be useful to:
“…demonstrate square numbers, and to remind my students about the commutative property of multiplication.”
And of course, these are the greatest thing to ever happen when it comes to the concept of fractions. Just look how they are used as the literal building blocks in breaking down and creating parts of a whole.
Read the entire Scholastic write-up if you’re curious to see what math assistance you missed out on as a child from your playful set of LEGOs, or if you’re a teacher in need of some help working through the mayhem that is math.
Check out this video:
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