Entry 3. Problem solving in relation to environment-based task.

Our group has chosen the topic on 'Money' for the environment-based task. We have chosen that topic as it is something which is very practical in our daily lives especially when the target group are the K2s. They need to be equipped with the concept and skills of handling money before they progress further to Primary 1.

We have understood the requirements of the task but thought that it would be more appropriate for such lessons to be translated and conducted in a classroom setting. At first, we decided to have Coffee Bean as our main setting, then MacDonald's, but in the end, we settled for the Marketplace at Raffles Shopping Centre.  We wanted to adopt the concept and have planned for a supermarket corner to be set up for the children where they will do pretend shopping of buying and selling of items using real money. Besides providing them with the right kind of language to use, it will definitely be a fun learning experience for them being given the liberty to consider and decide on what to buy for themselves given the limited amount of money that they have.

The extension for the planned activity would be to get the children to create a pictograph on the items purchased and to make their own comparisons. Besides, they can also create their own addition and substraction story sums given the prior knowledge of those concepts that they have earlier on. This is in line with what has been shared by Dr Yeap, that we should provide children with concrete experiences before moving on to pictographs and later on, the abstracts.