To teach the numbers to a group of young children you can use the concept of bingo game which can appeal to the minds of the young people as it is a game. This game will definitely appeal to both the sharp and the not too sharp students as it is luck rather than intelligence which is involved in the game. The not so sharp students can easily overcome the sharper students thus finding the game very interesting.
Bingo Game
You have a large number of rhymes and poems which you can use to teach the numbers 1 to 9. But when the number goes beyond 9 it becomes very difficult for the young children to comprehend. The numbers from 1 to 50 can be the starting point for the number learning class. Since a 3 by 3 square matrix is very easy to understand, you can use this simple matrix to teach the numbers to the children.
To play a game of bingo you need a set of cards which have these 3 by 3 square matrices filled with the numbers from 1 to 50. You can take a blank A4 sized paper and make 4 equal pieces from it. Next you can draw the 3 by 3 square matrix on the 4 pieces you have made and fill them with numbers randomly from 1 to 50. The number of such cards you need depends on the number of students you have.
Making these cards for the first time may be a small hassle but once you have created the various combinations then you do not have to repeat the process. You can also take the help of some sites from where you can directly print these educational cards. You can also get the cards laminated so that you do not have to make them or print them over and over again. If numbers beyond 50 are also used then the number of probable combinations also increases thus increasing the number of bingo cards.
The next part of the process is the preparation of the tick list where the numbers which are called out are to be marked. It is very simple to make such a list by dividing an A4 blank sheet into a 5 by 10 square matrix or grid with the numbers 1 to 10 in the first column, 11 to 20 in the next column and so on to have five columns.
The third part of the preparation needed for this game is how to mark the numbers. For marking the numbers on the cards you have to issue 9 buttons to each student. This avoids the cards being defaced by marking them with pencils and pens and they can be used repeatedly for subsequent bingo games.
Next comes the part of calling out the numbers which you can accomplish by using a book which has at least 50 pages. You open the book randomly and call out either the even page number or the odd page number. For each call you have to open and close the book every time. You have to tick the number you have called with a pencil to keep a track of the numbers you have called.
The game can now begin and every time a student gets a bingo win he is awarded with a chocolate. Gather the cards after each game and redistribute them to the students so that they get a different card every time.
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