This week is before the Chinese New Year's holiday break. It does not mean we can be relaxed but we have to put extra concentration as our syllabus getting harder and harder. Our target topic for this week is Number Operations and Basic Facts. In this chapter, we learned on how to develop meanings for the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

It is very important that students see mathematics, and the calculations they perform, as part of their daily life. Providing opportunities to apply basic concepts and operations in daily activities will reinforce students' skills and motivate them to progress in mathematics. They can use addition to figure total amounts of toys or snacks, and to keep track of their bank accounts or team equipment. Students can use subtraction to make comparisons between what they have and what they need for a game or other activity, to budget, and to calculate remaining items as they are used, or to calculate change when a purchase is made. They can multiply to figure larger totals, and to transform units from one measure into another. They can divide to determine equal portions of items, or to figure daily averages for sports scores or percent scores for quizzes or games.

In order for students to calculate using these four basic operations, they must first have developed basic concepts (including more, less, many, etc.), one to one correspondence, the concept of sets, and basic number sense. As students begin to learn to calculate, the following teaching considerations should help:

• Emphasize concept development rather than process or rote memorization.
• Apply operations to real life situations which are of interest to the student (e.g., provide opportunities for students to determine quantities of materials needed to play a game or complete a project and to estimate the price to purchase these materials). At first, provide examples for the student, then ask the student to provide his or her own examples which he or she sees as relevant uses of different operations.
• When students are using manipulatives, encourage them to search the entire "field" to make sure they are aware of all the objects with which they must work. Using trays or mats can help to identify this field and the area they must search.
• Word problems are very effective since they involve practical application of skills. To assist students in developing the skills necessary to solve word problems, it may be helpful to provide a problem solving model. First, identify the specific kinds of information needed in a particular problem; then provide two or three choices of operation statements to solve the problem. Eventually, students will be able to identify appropriate operations independently.
• Teach the concept of complements or partners for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. For example, the number 5 is made up of 2 and 3, 1 and 4; 24 is made up of the factors 8 and 3, or 2 and 12, etc. This concept not only increases the student's ease with number facts; it also facilitates mental mathematics.
• When teaching facts, focus on 2 or 3 related facts at a time. Emphasize accuracy first, then speed. Maintain a chart of mastered facts to help the student recognize progress.
• Small flip charts can be provided at a student's desk, with cues for steps in particular types of problems as a reference or reminder.

During the tutorial, our class were divided into four groups and each group required to prepare one activity using cards and exchange the activity with the other groups so that they can play all the 4 activities. Our group did a activity which was called Addition Bingo. The leader draws a card and reads the addends on it. Each player covers the sum on his or her Bingo card. Not all sums are given on each card. Some sums are given more than once on a Bingo cards, but a player may cover only one answer for each pair of addends. The winner is the first person with 5 markers in a row.