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Learning To Count

I Am Nico

I Am Nico

master brummie
How did you learn to count? I was prompted by Jeremy Vine show radio 2 how children learn or don't learn to read.
At school we had 10 types of coloured pieces of wood kitkat size all different colours, ! was white, 1o was blacl 7 pink maybe etc and you put them in multiples on your black piece 7 plus 3 etc = 10 orange plus blue.This was aged 7 to 8.
I just liked playing with the colours I liked best like most of us except for about 3 bright sparks who got it.
I learned with great gran dunking biscuits with holes in tea, like rich tea and morning coffee and arrowroot, eating a bit then telling her how many holes were left in the biscuit. I still think of holes when I count now. We also had dots on bits of wood like big dominoes,.
I also counted the Cadburys roses on the big tins, we got them from a sweet shop (empty) for storing cakes in.

Now you can take a calculator to an exam.
 
We always did our times tables in assembly every morning at All Saints School. It still stays with me to this day and can easily remember anything that is multiplied.
 
Nico said:
How did you learn to count? I was prompted by Jeremy Vine show radio 2 how children learn or don't learn to read.
At school we had 10 types of coloured pieces of wood kitkat size all different colours, ! was white, 1o was blacl 7 pink maybe etc and you put them in multiples on your black piece 7 plus 3 etc = 10 orange plus blue.This was aged 7 to 8.
I just liked playing with the colours I liked best like most of us except for about 3 bright sparks who got it.
I learned with great gran dunking biscuits with holes in tea, like rich tea and morning coffee and arrowroot, eating a bit then telling her how many holes were left in the biscuit. I still think of holes when I count now. We also had dots on bits of wood like big dominoes,.
I also counted the Cadburys roses on the big tins, we got them from a sweet shop (empty) for storing cakes in.

Now you can take a calculator to an exam.
Click to expand...

There are now two GCSE maths exam papers which all pupils take, one paper allows calculators and the other doesn't. So they're still tested on their ability to work out sums without a calculator. Not all is yet lost! Viv.
 
There are certain mathematical questions that would need a calculator unless the candidate was a natural mathematician and there are very few of those about. Its the abliity to understand how to apply the calculator thats important and dont forget before calculators there were slide rules.
 
carolina said:
We always did our times tables in assembly every morning at All Saints School. It still stays with me to this day and can easily remember anything that is multiplied.
Click to expand...

Before we progressed to Times Tables, at Highters Heath Infants they gave us little shells to lay out on our desks to help us to count.

I think they would've been Cowrie shells.
 
We did it in class too Carolina, these bits of wood were a new thing and the teacher had to use them, she said. One right viscious teacher made us do the 16 times table, I can remember up to 9 16's.
I was christened in All Saints church Cov it was a lovely little old church it was bulldozed along with All Saints lane ancient cottages to make Sky Blue Way.
 
We had cowrie shells too but I can't remember having to count them. We had weighing scales. And we wrote the brown paper parcel weighs .....I used to make it up.
 
I am pre calculator and post slide rules, I did my CSE's without them. We had to work it out on rough paper and we had to show how we worked it out in case we copied it.
 
Yes, maths exams today specifically ask candidates to show their workings too. Also the questions seem much more relevant to everyday life than those I remember when I was doing O levels in the 1960s. Viv.
 
Tried to help my step children with their maths homework it was more like what an architect or a costs clerk would have to work out, very practical.
I did modern maths and they changed the numerical bases from 10 to anything. We drew little stick lines all over the place. We liked the teacher but never saw the point of it. I never got to O level I did CSE thats all my school did, 72/73.
 
I used an abacus at Four Oaks County Primary school. My grandson has one at home, aged 7 he is excellent at maths maybe something to be said for the old ways.
 
30 years ago I was working in Egypt, and when I went to the bank to get cash the teller could work it all out on his abacus faster than I could with my (then very new) calculator. I never did figure out how an abacus is used. But I can (or could) use a slide-rule. Funnily enough I could use logarithm tables but again didn't understand how they worked.

What blew my tiny mind at school was calculus. This was something I just couldn't get my head around - it seemed utterly pointless to me. The maths master (note 'master', not 'teacher', at my old school) was totally unable to generate any interest in the subject of mathematics either in me or most of the others in the class. It was like having a talking robot standing in front of you.

Big Gee
 
Agree with you 100% Big Gee. I have never since school days used calculus and differentiation, logorithms, very little algerbra ..... well the list goes on. The most useful part of maths for me has proved to be adding, subtraction, percentages, times tables, maybe fractions from time to time. Unless you're planning a scientific or mathematical career, it all seems to have been a bit excessive. And our maths teacher used to sweep around in a gown - very intimidating he was, and very harsh. Used to embarrass the hell out of you for the slightest error and would throw things at you. No wonder I got switched OFF maths. Viv.
 
I just remembered we did Algebra logarithms something else I have forgotten the name of, never did calculus, pythgara's theorum something with hypotoneuse and I can't remember one single thing.The title Master was reserved for senior teachers like a House Master.
 
nico

Pythagoras' Theorem was something that was hammered into us at my secondary modern, its about the only thing I remember from School.

When the square on the hypotenuse of a right angle triangle is equal to the sum of the square of the two adjacent sides.
A squared + B squared = C squared
 
Even though I never got on with science subjects at school, I ended up working in a lab (just a paid skivvy, really), but I eventually worked in a development laboratory where, with the exception of the occasional bit of chemistry, I never used anything that I was taught at school in science and maths. I liked the reality of science a lot more than the theory, that's for sure.

Big Gee
 
Wow that's impressive Phil. You're top of the class!! We had a teacher in junior school who, if you didn't recite times tables accurately he'd wollop your knuckles with a heavy ruler. Consequently I learnt my tables. Remember the Woolies Winfield notebooks - red I think - that had all the times tables on the back? But did they only go up to 10 x whatever number? Viv.
 
Mathematics was my absolute hated subject, I was ok at junior school with arithmetic and we also used to recite the times tables by rote - I still get stuck on the 7s lol - and do mental arithmetic when the teacher would call out a sum for you to answer, but as soon as algebra and trigonometry came in that was me lost! I took my O level maths 3 times and got a D each time, yet got a CSE1*, largely because the CSE paper was more arithmetic than equations. Problem at senior was compounded by the factthat I had the same Master as my younger brother, whi is a whizz at anything mathematical, so ueesed to get compared to him, which didn't help, although he was useful for doing homework for me! My 2 girls are chalk and cheese, Sal loves maths, Katy hates it, Owen is good at it, ut so is his dad.
Sue
 
I can't remember learning to count - probably on my fingers because I don't remember any blocks or anything like that. I went through school without a calculator although we did get log tables for the larger numbers in secondary school. I did OK in math at O level and wound up working in accounts and computing years later. Never did pass the English exam 'though. Maybe that was slowed a little by having to go through three sets of "readers" in primary school (Janet & John, several colours and a set I don't really remember).
 
we were taught to count before we went to school on one of these...crikey it takes me back as we always had one in the house...

lyn

countingframe.jpg
 
So just how do you use an abacus, Lyn? I gots to know!

In pre-electronic calculator days, the company I worked for had those ancient mechanical 'adding machines' which I think were made by IBM. I could never ever figure out how they worked, either, yet there were kids in the offices and labs who could do just about any calculation in seconds. With maths, you've either got it or you ain't, and I ain't.

Big Gee
 
big gee i have to be honest ive forgotton lol...i think our mom just used the beads in her own way to teach us...any road up it worked...

lyn
 
Big Gee I think the machines you describe were Sumlock Calculators. I never used them myself, my sister was a comptometer operator don't know what machine she used though.
 
As a child like most of you i learnt my x tables parrot fashion, however i could never understand why for instance fourteen old pennies was 1/2 and not 1/4,
if you see what i mean. It took me ages to work that out. My Dad used to say don't worry son one of these days this country might become like everybody
else and use denominations of ten instead of twelve, and guess what!!!
 
Neville Philpott said:
As a child like most of you i learnt my x tables parrot fashion, however i could never understand why for instance fourteen old pennies was 1/2 and not 1/4,
if you see what i mean. It took me ages to work that out. My Dad used to say don't worry son one of these days this country might become like everybody
else and use denominations of ten instead of twelve, and guess what!!!
Click to expand...
Your dad was so right Neville. I made myself ill worrying about decimalisation as the headmaster used to some and teach us it and we were all scared of him.
One teacher used to give us well not homework you had to do it when we had a free period we were only 10. We had to learn 20 John Smiths spellings and an exercise from anther book every week. If we got one wrong or we marked someone else's book wrong, we had to mark each others, we had to stay in and wrote the word 100 times. I had a classmate who would be now recognised as dyslexic. We used to swap books to mark. They wouldn;t know if n=mine was right or wrong so I just gave her a few more wrong than me so the teacher wouldn't suspect either of us. How to survive in School! The teacher branded people thick in front of everyone. The Thickies she said.
 
wam said:
I can't remember learning to count - probably on my fingers because I don't remember any blocks or anything like that. I went through school without a calculator although we did get log tables for the larger numbers in secondary school. I did OK in math at O level and wound up working in accounts and computing years later. Never did pass the English exam 'though. Maybe that was slowed a little by having to go through three sets of "readers" in primary school (Janet & John, several colours and a set I don't really remember).
Click to expand...
I started with Little Fisher Duckling then Janet and John so I always laugh to Terry Wogan on a weekend.The the Gayway colour series. Don;t think I got past yellow which was about half way. Meg the hen and Jip the Cat and Ben the dog. I found Chicken Licken an insult to my intelligence aged 7.
 
sylviasayers said:
Big Gee I think the machines you describe were Sumlock Calculators. I never used them myself, my sister was a comptometer operator don't know what machine she used though.
Click to expand...
The accounts dept had adding machines with a till roll, I couldn't fathom them. When I worked behind a bar you had to press the pound keys the keys up to ninety pence and the single pence all at once. Would have struggles with £1 17/6 happeny.
 
One of the best ways of learning mental arithmetic is in the pub.

If you don't win at darts you end up scoring for other people and by heavens if you get it wrong when a player asks what has he left you are in trouble.

I soon learnt to practice my darts rather than get lumbered scoring all the time.
 
Vivienne14 said:
Wow that's impressive Phil. You're top of the class!! We had a teacher in junior school who, if you didn't recite times tables accurately he'd wollop your knuckles with a heavy ruler. Consequently I learnt my tables. Remember the Woolies Winfield notebooks - red I think - that had all the times tables on the back? But did they only go up to 10 x whatever number? Viv.
Click to expand...
The Winfield notebooks brings back that horrible old back to school feeling.
When I started as a junior, the sales reps used 4x4 inch blue duplicate books (you can still get them) to put their orders in on, which were written up din a massive loose bound leger, in pencil and inked over only when the order was confirmed, hence the expression "can you pencil it in" I suppose. Then 30 years on the yanks bought us out and the order pads were in triplicate A4 pads and we had to key the info in to a computer as well. Then I was replaced by a system.
I did like the feel and smell of the old accounting books full of squares and columns and a new pencil with a rubber.
Also remember mum's writing pad it was pale blue with a red quill feather on the outside. Wood it be Faber and Faber or Basildon Bond? She kept her stationery in an old black magic box her boss gave he the chocs. Dad couldn't afford a box that size, it was like a decent sized book, deep with a red silk tassell on it.
Remember how small the envelopes used to be I still have some.
Nico
 
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