Fun and effective poem to teach Mathematics

This can be conducted as a simple home practice activity. It has been road-tested in speech and language therapy sessions and is popular with children and parents. It is especially useful for children with language-based learning difficulties such as Specific Language Impairment (SLI), Dyslexia and Speech and Language Delay.

I have an orange, and you have two.
You give me an orange, and I’ll have two.
I eat one orange and give one back to you.
I don’t have any oranges, you still have two.

Role play using actual objects. I find that making play dough oranges is always popular with kids.
However, take note to supervise children if you are using a play dough to ensure they just pretend to eat the orange.
You can also use other food such as popcorn, candy, raisins, etc.

Practice the following to help your 4-5 year old child understand math questions:
1. Read sentence and go through action
2. Read sentence and write it out as a Math equation
3. Use ‘I’ and ‘you’ scenarios

What this exercise does
The “You” and “I” elements in the poem helps to promote social interaction amongst children, especially for children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

Through the poem, children can improve their literacy level and improve their skills for reading, reading comprehension, expressive language and social interaction. Attention span can be further enhanced through the usage of simple tools or aids to help them understand the poem.

Play dough is included to make the activity more fun and help them visualise the poem better. You can also let the children make use of play dough to act out the poem. This gives you the opportunity to use phrases or instructions such as “divide the dough into three portions”, “add the dough”, “one each” and etc.

Using a physical toy also encourages social interaction in children who need to improve social skills. You can inculcate the idea of sharing and giving among friends or even introduce new concept words like “Yours” and “Mine”.

Check out  the exercise above. Have fun!