There are story books on a plethora of different themes that cover important aspects of geography, history, science, and literature. These books satisfy the curiosity amongst youngsters and give them an opportunity to read in greater depth about topics that interests them. Children naturally seek answers to questions that are not usually readily available in school textbooks, and story books or novels fill this gap by sharing rich research-worthy content for learners.

For a subject like math, where every student gets jitters and builds anxiety for numbers there are story books available that light-heartedly cover concepts of counting, patterns, shapes, fractions, amongst others, to help the reluctant learners build confidence in the subject. The colorful characters and attractive story-line makes It an interesting read and children are intrigued to learn more as against giving excuses.

Like many inspiring pieces of children’s literature, most math picture books feature; animals, superheroes, jungle scenes, and magic tricks, to build up an interesting storyline. Through this Blog, we aim to highlight some interesting topic-wise math story books for preschoolers and elementary graders.

Basic Counting Skills

Story books that teach ‘counting’ are extremely helpful to aid hands-on learning for newbie children who are just learning to count or even those who have a hang of counting, but need to brush-up their counting game!

How Many Snails?

A Counting Book by Paul Giganti Along with counting, children also get to apply their power of observation to group similar objects, and sort them out as per their characteristics like; color & style. As you turn the pages, the eye-catching illustrations offer praise-worthy visuals that intrigue kids and get them excited about counting. There are also a set of questions listed on the pages, which tests the student’s power of observation. 

1, 2, 3 to the zoo by Eric Carle

A bandwagon of animals are heading to the zoo on a train! As interesting as it sounds, the journey keeps getting more adventurous as different animals hop on into the train coach and have fun travelling together, while children engross themselves in counting the number of ‘add on’ page after page. At the end of the book, the entire train is shown with all the animals together, so that kids can once again practice counting.

One Hundred Hungry Ants

A colony of 100 ants are making their way to a picnic spot to get some yummy food for themselves. As they march forward, the ants break into different groups and formations showing different divisions of one hundred. This book is great for children who want to learn about grouping higher numbers.

Addition and Subtraction

Once preschoolers have learnt to count correctly, children now proceed to books that teach them about addition and subtraction.

Ten Apples Up On Top! by Dr. Seuss

Three animal friends decide to stack apples and balance them on their heads. Are you joining along? Don’t let the apples drop, and count as many as you can. Children learn addition up to 10 while cracking up reading Dr. Seuss style punchlines and one liners.

More Than and Less Than Equations

These books help children compare the greater numbers vs. the smaller one and learn to place the symbol correctly.

Ready, Set, Hop! By Stuart J. Murphy

Froggie friends Matty and Moe jump from one stone to the other in an attempt to reach the other side of the pond first. Matty hops 3 stones away and Moe hops 4 stones more than Matty. So, this means, children have to compare 3 and 7 and derive this equation 3 < 7. Children learn the concept of more than, and lesser than and write the equations correctly.

Along with story books, students can also enjoy math activities on the Mathseeds app. This is a digital platform adopted by schools in progressive regions such as Dubai and UAE, to shift focus from boring pen & paper assignments, to interesting story-like lessons which feature interesting characters and eye-catching visuals. Designed especially for children aged 3-9, this program encompasses all important concepts with a delightful twist. To learn more and subscribe to Mathseeds in GCC or any other Middle Eastern country, visit our website: <link>

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Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Application (VBA). Spreadsheets are used to organize numbers and data with formulas and functions. It can also be used for Data Entry, Data Management, Accounting, Financial Analysis, Charting and Graphing, Programming, Financial Modeling, and almost anything that needs to be organized.

For children to learn the art of using Excel and its spreadsheets has become a must-know as it opens the gates to real world usage and problem solving methods in a steady and systematic manner.

Visual communication

Children these days face many issues on an academic level, many of which the older generation cannot understand or help with since education and methods of implementing it have progressed immensely. To reach a satisfying solution to problems, many factors will have to be taken into account and to show the variables is what the spreadsheet is for. To begin, students need to organize information into tables. They sort that information into pie charts, line sheets or columns. These will help your students communicate to their peers the problem that they collectively face and find quicker solutions.

Features on a spreadsheet

• Ribbon: Menu options with several tabs to work with.
• Formula Bar: It is the platform to view the formula or the value of the selected cell or the active cell.
• Column Header: Each column has its own heading with alphabet characters representing each column separately.
• Row Header: Each row has its own heading with numbers starting from 1.
• Spreadsheet Area: The combination of rows and columns form a rectangular box. Each cell is identified by a unique cell address consisting of a column header and a row header. For the first cell, the column header is A, and the row header is 1, so the first cell address is A1.
• Formatting: Formatting is used to change the appearance of the data represented in the worksheet. Formatting can be done in multiple ways such as we can format the font of the cells or we can format the table by using the styles and format tab available in the home tab.
• Formula: A formula is an equation that makes calculations based on the data in your spreadsheet. It is entered into a cell in your worksheet. They must begin with an equal sign, followed by the addresses of the cell that will be calculated upon, with an appropriate operand placed in between.

TechnoKids Computer Curriculum is a collection of technology projects that mean engaging computer activities for K-12 students. Each technology venture teaches different current technologies and STEM skills such as Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Coding, Programming, Innovation, 3D Printing, and many more. Since the introduction of these computer lesson plans, countries like UAE, in the Middle East, with agreement from the GCC, have shown great promise in inculcating these into the lives of their children, with Dubai being at the forefront of it.

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A question bank is created with an aim to assimilate all important questions that are relevant to students of a particular grade and can be used during an examination while preparing the test paper. Both, subjective and objective questions form a part of the question bank to provide a good pool of assessment-worthy content. With the advent of EdTech culture, educators can now easily formulate important questions on a software and store it digitally for easy reference in future.

Markezy is a tried & tested ‘assessment platform’ that supports schools in digitalizing the whole examination & evaluation process, thereby eliminating the traditional pen & paper format. It offers maximum convenience to educators such that the answer paper can be evaluated anytime, anywhere, from any device. The software even suggests important questions from the syllabus and recommends it to paper setters, so that they don’t waste time in collating and preparing topics, just before the parodic tests. IB Schools in Dubai and GCC countries, including other progressive regions across the world have collaborated with Markezy and added it into the ERP system.

Preparing a question bank is the first step for any online exam and here are a few characteristics or examples that can be adhered to while curating a set of questions for exams:

• Word the questions in an easy to understand format by using simple and clear language as per the level of comprehension by students.
• The questions must not create confusion and must be properly framed such that children have clarity on the topic they are attempting.
• Not too easy, not too tough, should be the rule! If the question is too straightforward it gives out the answer directly and doesn’t compel students to think. On the other hand, slightly complex questions will make learners use their knowledge and apply the learnings in an appropriate manner.
• Each set of test paper must have equivalent weightage given to subjective type questions and objectives. Also, there shouldn’t be any bias while preparing the paper and having one set of test paper is extremely difficult to attempt, as compared to the others.
• It is a good practice to prepare 3-4 sets of papers with the order of questions jumbled, to avoid any cheating or malpractice by students while attempting the online exams.
• Along with the change in order of questions, examiners can use assessment platforms such as Markezy to auto choose 30 out of the 100 important questions from the question bank and randomly create sets with a different cluster of 30 questions, such that the educator can gauge every student’s knowledge over a wide spectrum of topics. To learn more about Markezy and avail it in the Middle East or UAE region, visit our website: https://knowledge-hub.com/markezy/

Steps to set-up a Question bank

Choose Topic and Draft Questions

The subject teacher can login to the school’s assessment system and type out all the questions that are important from an examination point of view. One can even allocate sub-categories under the main topic to streamline & make things more systematic.

Assign Marks

Each question needs to be allocated with marks as per its level of difficulty. There should be no room for ambiguity and marks should be clearly stated to avoid any chance of discrepancy while checking the examination paper. Also, how many marks are to be given for steps, what is the maximum marks one can score per question, is there any negative grading, what are the criteria or important pointers that are to be included in the long format essay type answers- all this needs to be decided in advance by the examiner.

Predetermine the Pattern

The pattern or format of the examination paper can be fed into the system and details regarding the allocation of time to each question, marks for attempting the answer, type of difficulty level, topic covered under each section, etc. can be predetermined early on.

Auto generating Exam Paper

Once the system has been fed with appropriate important questions, marks, and time allocation, it is ready to auto-generate a question paper. Different sets can be extracted with a mix-bag of difficult & easy questions. Students will be allocated unique IDs and they can login to attempt the test. The time limit for paper submission and time allocated to each question is also fixed, for students to keep a tab of their progress & complete the answers on time.

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School is the foremost fountain of knowledge that children are exposed to. It gives them a chance to acquire knowledge regarding a variety of fields such as literature, history, politics, mathematics, people, science, etc. Our children are the future of the world and as with every generation that follows another, it has seen some significant qualitative and quantitative growth in schooling and education. The learning process one experiences and goes through in their youth is definitely one of the main factors that lead to the kind of person they grow up to be as adults.

Ever since the pandemic struck the world, all the schools were closed, and it was not until a few months later that they started to conduct schools online so as to make sure that the children do not miss out on valuable experiences in their youth. While it has proven beneficial for some students and has borne no fruits for others, some argue that they may be losing vital experiences of life in their youth.

Here are the differences between Online Sessions and Classroom Learning

Schooling experience

Schools have always provided more than books, teachers and studying in a building. They are stages for the kids to indulge in their passions or hobbies and find something more than just completing their syllabus for that semester. While some children might find such an environment stressful, it has been known to be an important experience in a person’s developing years.

On the other hand, some contest that children who wish to study at home due to loss of focus in the environment of schools should be allowed to do so and Online Learning is the ideal way to make this happen. It offers less distraction allowing students to get the most out of their time.

Parents and their involvement

Traditional schools offer parents very few chances to be involved in their child’s life. Only on occasions of Parent-Teacher meets, Reviewing homework or school events are parents ever called to school. Many parents can feel out-of-sync with their children when that end-of-year report card arrives.

Online learning rectifies this by the ability given to parents to be in constant touch with the teachers regarding the grades, remarks, complaints or even compliments given to the students. They can play an active role by helping monitor attendance, progress and comprehension.

Safety and personalized learning

Children can be shy in traditional schools which can lead to them being bullied sometimes. This becomes a harrowing experience for a child. Online schools nullify this worry and help children escape the environment they may dislike due to bullying.

Along with this much-appreciated solution, some kids may find it hard to stick to a timetable all the time in a traditional setting. Online schools solve this problem by a flexible schedule that is personalized in every way according to the child’s needs and is accepted by the parent to have shown improvement in the child’s performance.

NLP or Next Learning Platform is an out-of-the-box school management solution that improves academic efficiency and enhances school operations by integrating the best of both traditional and digital methods. It offers a combination of the digital tools required by a school such as ERP, LMS, adaptive assessments, content, etc. This helps students to gain insights into students’ learning like never before while enhancing the productivity of the school staff. Their online lectures have found considerable growth in the Middle East by agreement from the GCC. Countries like the UAE have implemented these in cities like Dubai.

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