Five-Minute Activities for Young Learners

6.14 My mathematics class
Level
***
Language focus
Mathematics word problem, vocabulary: days of the week
Skills focus
Reading for gist and details
Thinking focus
Problem solving
Teaching approach
Promote accuracy – correct errors
Interaction
Pairwork, suitable for large classes
Preparation
Write a word problem on the board. See Box 124.
Note: The focus of this activity is to read and comprehend. Mathematics is
simply the context for the text.
Five-Minute Activities for Young Learners
140

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About me
141
Procedure
1 Divide the class into pairs and ask the children to read the word problem.
They may not know all the vocabulary, but they should get the gist of the
text.
2 Then ask them, in pairs, to translate this word problem into a number
problem. See Box 124. Encourage the pairs to talk together as they solve
the problem.
3 Call on the children to share their answers with the class.