Smelly Sums

Learning is fun, Alexa is fun it seems to me these two things should go together.

Unfortunately when I see children be taught I have often noticed a problem especially when the teacher is a parent to a small child. When the teacher sees the pupil make a mistake it is the teacher moment to shine. It is the teacher's opportunity to correct the pupil and so fulfill their function. The teacher is often so happy about this their voice changes, unfortunately from the pupil's perspective things aren't so good. What they see is that they are WRONG and their parent is HAPPY because they are WRONG and this is especially true of small children.

So it's a quiz, but a quiz with a difference because its aim is not to test or correct but to show the way to get the correct answer. The reward is not a score but the "currency of the playground" which is far more useful to the average child learning primary school maths.

It was put together over a couple of weeks evolving as I tried things out and found out what worked and what didn't.

I'm really pleased with the way the descriptions of how to do maths are presented at the point where they are needed. I am also pleased with the way I was able to include a very large vocabulary; after all, who doesn't want to be able to complement a meal by saying it is toothsome!

I would really like to take the maths a little further. Social media is currently awash with questions which rely on people's ignorance of the order of operations resulting in differing answers to an apparently simple sum. It would be excellent if for once the pupil (child) could correct the teacher (parent).

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