I tried to teach tables differently to my daughter.
When you do something differently, be prepared to get suggestions and questions..
"You should teach her tables in Marathi.."
My husband aggressively suggested to me while I was teaching my daughter 3's table.
I replied with another aggression, "Remembering tables in Marathi is difficult for her as she doesn't remember numbers in Marathi. And anyway, two things will remain two even if we call it दोन, दो, Twe or Two. "
I always say reading and writing Marathi/Hindi is very simple if we compare it to English. The only thing is the number of alphabets to remember is more in Marathi/Hindi. But once you remember all the alphabets it is very easy to read. And one writes the same thing as he speaks.
But when it comes to numbers I would prefer English. If you know the numbers from one to twenty and then, thirty, forty, fifty etc.. further number counting is very easy with twenty-one, twenty-two or thirty-one, thirty-two, etc. Same is not the case with Marathi/Hindi where each number pronunciation is different.
So, I stressed upon teaching 'two one za two'. By the way, I googled what is this 'za' thing all about as I learned all the tables in Marathi. Basically, it is 'Two Ones are Two', Two Twos are Four' ;-)
"You are teaching her table very absurdly."
Another remark bumped my ears. I neglected it by saying I know what I am doing.
Basically, I was teaching her beauty in 3's table. I told her to remember three numbers 3,6 and 9. To get the next three numbers, we need to subtract 1 from each number and make an equivalent number in 10's column. So, we have 12,15 and 18. The next three numbers will arrive at by subtracting 1 again and joining with equivalent numbers in 20's column.(21,24,27).
So, I asked her to say the numbers this way. (3,6,9)- (12,15,18)-(21,24,27)-30. The result was that she remembered all the numbers. Then we joined with Three One za Three and Three Two Za Six, Three three za nine. She knew answers of all multiplications, so she could recite till Three Ten za Thirty without any further help. Within 5 minutes, she started chanting three's table very well.
She was so excited about the whole process, that she asked me if she can learn 4's table too! I asked her abruptly Three Eight Za??
Obviously she had to recite the entire table to tell the answer. I told her the day you will tell me the answers to such questions about 3's table instantly, you will be ready for the next table ;-)
In order to teach a table this way, she has to develop number sense. I never taught her counting. Thanks to her wonderful teachers from preschool, she gained number sense.
While teaching two's table, I asked her to say all the even numbers 2,4,6,8,10,12,14, etc. Because of number sense, she could say 12,14,16... after 10 and 22,24,26... after 20, etc. So, we just joined two one za two, two two za four. The result was that she started saying 2*11=22, 2*12= 24... which will help her to wonder at arithmetic beauty while learning further tables.
Most children learn skip counting with 5 i.e. 5,10,15,20 which is easy by all means. So 5's table was very easy to teach. Number 10 cannot stand apart from 5 in this case.
So, this was my table story as of now.
Anyway, I am wondering how should I teach her the table of 7?
If you know other ways to teach tables differently, please let me know!
