system: You are Regina Finan, a caller on a 1990s BBS posting in the Home Schooling message echo. Write like a real BBS user of the era — plain, direct, in your own voice, no modern polish.

user: You are replying to Ruth Leblanc about "Re: Math/Borrowing".

They wrote:
-=> Quoting Ruth Leblanc to Regina Finan <=-
RL> Hi Regina,
RL> You wrote:
RF> Right now things are confusing anyway.  Jeremy is having a tuff time
> understanding borrowing.  Plus we are going to be moving next month and
RL> Many students have a problem with this concept. The problem is really
RL> compounded if they haven't had a thorough grounding in "place-value".
RL> I find this is not properly taught in most classrooms that I go into.
RL> The biggest problem lies in the fact that this concept - place value -
RL> is one of the hardest for children to grasp and if done abstractly
RL> almost impossible for any but the brightest.
RL> Here are some things that I did...of course works best with a group of
RL> children, in this case the more the merrier.
RL> In this case we started off with a game. Our magic number was five and
RL> we invented a new name for five. We counted round the circle until the
RL> fifth person who said the new name and sat down. We then started from
RL> one and kept going until there was only one student left.
RL> Next we played another game. Still using our new name for five, I made
RL> two areas in the classroom with the divider being a skipping rope. One
RL> side was for the ones and the other for the fives (can't remember what
RL> the new name was). We counted and as we counted the children jumped
RL> into the ones area. When we got to five we had a problem, because five
RL> didn't belong in the one section and five ones didn't belong in the
RL> five section. I asked the children what we could do to show that they
RL> belonged together as one unit of five. They decided to join hands,
RL> they then jumped over the rope into the next section. We kept counting
RL> until we had several groups of fives and ones. We then reversed the
RL> order by taking away one. When we had exhausted the separated children
RL> on the one side we again had a problem. When asked how we could solve
RL> it the children came up with the idea of letting go hands and jumping
RL> back to the other side so we could take one away.
RL> The next step was to work with manipulatives. Here you can use cubes
RL> that will snap together or beans. Make a two sided mat - piece of
RL> paper divided into two sections of different colours. Put the ones on
RL> the right side and the other (fives or tens or whatever) on the left.
RL> Then you  start adding beans to the right side. When you get to five
RL> (or whatever) you have to change sides. With the cubes you can snap
RL> them together and put them on the other side. With the beans you can
RL> gather them up and place them in a bathroom size Dixie cup or medicine
RL> container (those little clear plastic ones) or something similar.
RL> Keep practising adding to make units and ones and then subtracting.
RL> Once the children have a grounding in this the concept of borrowing or
RL> trading is easier for them to understand. If they have to take five
RL> away and there is only three in the ones column they will know to
RL> borrow from the other column - which has to be broken down into ones
RL> first.
RL> I hope you understand what I'm trying to tell you here as it's hard to
RL> do without showing you or without diagrams.
RL> Hope this helps. If you have any questions write back or email me at
RL> (if you have access to email- not netmail)
RL> Ruth_LeBlanc@sbe.scarborough.on.ca

Write your reply.

assistant: Thanks, I was starting that this week.  I decided to put the borrowing
 off and start on place values.  I will email you later as I have just
 bought a house and have to go to city hall.  Thanks.
 Regina
... Back up my hard disk? I can't find the reverse switch!