Carl’s Math Introduction

Carl Wayte

Carl was born on July, 1800. He could speak six languages (German, French, Italian, Latin, English, and Greek) fluently when he was only 8 years old. Also, he mastered in chemistry, zoology, botany, and physics. Among all, mathematic is the field that he best good at. When he was 9 years old, he was admitted by the University of Leipzig; then he entered the Argentina University when he was 10 years old. During the winter of 1812, he has published a thesis about helix which was highly praised by other scholars. When he was 13 years old, he has published a book named ‘The Triangle’. 1814 April, his excellent work in a Mathematical thesis has made him awarded a doctoral degree in Philosophy. Furthermore, along with his French doctoral degree when he was 16 years old, he was appointed to be a French Professor in the University of Berlin. All in all, Carl was a well-known genius during the 19th century.

Carl was not a gifted child. Unfortunately, he was announced as a dementia child by his doctor when he was born. All the achievements and excellence that he obtained were to be credited to his father, his meritorious method in educating Carl.

Senior Carl Wayte’s Meritorious Education System

Along the way to bring him up, I realized that among all subjects, mathematic is the only subject that hard to get the kids’ attention. All the other subjects such as zoology, botany, geology, these are the subjects that we can just let our kids to play games in the natural, let them to touch it and feel it, then they will automatically learn something from it because this way gets their attention easily. All but mathematics, it is an abstract subject. It requires the learners to think by themselves which is the most hated among the kids. Carl used to hate mathematics a lot. It is easy for me to teach Carl about counting, digits, money like coins and bank notes, but when it comes to memorizing the multiplication table, Carl refused to do accordingly. And, that was the first time he refuses to study. This shows that kids like him, hate memorizing word to word. Therefore, I tried to compose a melody for Carl to sing along to remember the multiplication table, but he hated it still. That was the time I really worried.

When Carl was just 5 years old, he could speak in three languages already. Besides that, he knows about zoology, botany, geology, myth, history, and literature that is possible for him to compete with a secondary school student. However, he was weak in mathematics that he couldn’t even tell any from the multiplication table. Is Carl partial to other subjects in academy? Personally, I do not like to raise my child who partial to only one or few subjects. I would like my child to be an all-rounder. One that partial to something will not achieve success and happiness. Back to the topic, when I was worried about Carl that he was not interested in mathematics, I did not force him to memorize the multiplication table. I deeply believe that forcing is not a way to educate a child, in contrast, it will cause distortion of their personality.

There was one day, I went and visited my old friend. And at my old friend’s house, I’ve met Professor Rosenblum. He is a mathematic expert with excellent knowledge and ideas in that field. After sharing my worries with Professor Rosenblum, he said,”The problem is not Carl has no interest in learning mathematics, the problem is on you. The way you teach Carl is incorrect. It is because you are not able to make it interesting, which is why Carl is not interested to learn it. You yourself like languages, music, literature, and history, that is why you can make these lessons to be interesting and fun enough to learn. However, you do not like mathematics at all, thus you are not able to make it interesting enough to learn. This is why Carl hates it. ” After that, he taught me an interesting and fun method to teach mathematics and I applied it to Carl. Surprisingly, the outcome is impressive.

Professor Rosenblum recommended few ways to stir up Carl’s interests towards mathematics. One of them is to insert beans and buttons into a paper box, then Carl and I each grab a handful of beans and buttons from the paper box and count who grab the most. Sometimes, when we are eating grapes or some other fruits, Carl and I count the number of seed; we even count the number of peas in a pod when we are helping our maids to shell the peas.

Tossing dice is another game that I always play with Carl. First take two dice and toss the two together, sum up and jot down the face values of the two dice each time we toss it, then total up all after three to five games to determine who is the winner.

Carl really likes these games a lot. However, no matter how much he likes playing it, Professor Rosenblum doesn’t recommend to let kids playing it more than 15 minutes each time. Mathematical game uses brain that takes up a lot of energy, which then cause kids to get tired easily. When Carl is getting used to the games, I would add one more dice to make it three dice, then four dice, five dice and until six dice every two to three weeks to level up the difficulty. Other than that, for the beans and buttons game, I will separate them into two to three groups which two in a group, or even three to four groups which three in a group, then arrange them in a line. Carl will then count how many beans and buttons are there in each group and write it on a paper. After that, I will frame and hang it on the wall as a multiplication table that is easy for Carl to remember. This game is very flexible that you can always level up the difficulty and let your kids learn further like the seven or eight multiplication table.

In order to make it practical, I always play the grocery shop game with Carl. I will make all the products’ price calculated based on its length or weight. To make it even more realistic, I will quote those price in reality with real bank notes and coins. My wife and I visit Carl’s store always to buy groceries from him. Carl will then sum up the bill, we pay with real bank notes and he will change the balance to us.

It is just that easy. By following Professor Rosenblum’s way to do it, Carl’s has becoming interested in mathematics and it is easier to teach him math after that. Carl did not just learn the basic like calculating, but also algebra and geometry. Eventually, Carl did not just interested in mathematics, but he is totally in love with it!

The Charming Dice (Sample game)

The ‘Tossing the Dice’ game is derived from a set of flight chess. There was one day when I picked up Jenny from the school, she kept asking me to buy her a set of flight chess which her friend has one. Since flight chess is affordable, I took her to the shop and bought one set for her on that day. When we got back home, the first thing she did was set up the flight chess and waiting for me to play it with her. During the game, I realized that flight chess is not the main reason why she wants it. It was the dice. That day, she kept tossing the dice because she wasn’t able to read the face value of the dice. I noticed that. So the next day, I decided to play a ‘Tossing the Dice’ game with her. I told her that this game is going to compete at the face values of each dice we tossed, and the winner is the one with the biggest total face value. She looked puzzling when I told because she was too young for that. Without hesitation, I started off the game by tossing the dice and I got ‘4’, then I wrote it on a paper. I handed the dice to Jenny and she tossed a ‘5’. I wrote it on the paper as well and told her that ‘5’ is bigger than ‘4’, thus she is the winner of this game. Even she did not know the concept of bigger and smaller, but she did feel excited that she won the game. Day after day, Jenny learnt the digits from ‘1’ to ‘6’, and the concept of smaller and bigger as well. Now, I would like to buy another dice and add it into the game to level up the difficulty. This is really a good game for me and Jenny.