Using nursery rhymes as a stimulus for teaching math

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men.

Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

Question: Who is Humpty Dumpty?

Ø  Is he an egg? What evidence do you have to state that he is one?

Ø  How do you know he breaks?

In Math, we use Humpty Dumpty as a stimulus for perhaps young children.

We touched on:

ü  Measurement for the height of the wall.

ü  Counting for the number of horses and men.

ü  Perhaps even classifying first then counting the number of men and horses.

Another point that I learnt is that the word “similar” is not in mathematical terms. At times, people tend to ask a similar question between 2 different objects but of a similar property. That is wrong. For example, a teacher may show a picture of a lion and a tiger and ask the children, “What is similar about these 2 animals?” The answer the teacher may get is, “They are both big animals.” Is that right? Similar in this context means one enlargement of another. So therefore, it is not advisable to use the word similar unless you mean it.