How can children not like it if learning is made as appealing as a liquor-filled chocolate; and how can they possibly like it if learning is made as unpalatable as a Buffalo Gall Pills (a traditional Chinese medicine)?
I have discovered that playing "running a convenience store" with children is an excellent activity. Through this game, children can be taught addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, which effectively enhances their mathematical calculation skills. This is truly an enjoyable way to learn.
When Yinyin was about four years old, I spent some time teaching her arithmetic, initially using the method of counting on fingers for problems like "2+3 equals what." She liked doing it at first, but after a while, she began to show signs of boredom. So, I thought: Is there any way for her to learn calculations while maintaining interest?
At that time, community supermarkets had not yet appeared, but there were usually one or two "convenience stores" in each residential area. Yinyin loved going to these small shops with me to buy things. Every time we went, I let her tell the shopkeeper what to buy and hand over the money herself. At the time, my intention was just to help her learn how to get things done and interact naturally with people. Unexpectedly, this gave her a concept of money's role from a very young age.
One day, after buying something from a small store, Yinyin looked at me with envy and said she wanted to open a convenience store when she grew up. She said that we need to spend money to buy things, but those who run convenience stores don't need to spend money. Later, I found out that she played the "running a convenience store" game with the neighborhood kids, taking turns being the shopkeeper and customer. The shopkeeper always seemed quite proud. It seemed that she really wanted to be a little shopkeeper, so I decided to play the "running a convenience store" game with her.
Yinyin became the shopkeeper, and naturally, my husband and I became the customers. We gathered some items and set up a "small shop" on the floor for her, placing various "goods" inside. Some goods were real, others were substitutes (for example, her favorite popsicles needed substitutes), as long as she understood them. Then we took turns visiting her shop.
We carefully browsed through her merchandise, chose what we wanted to buy, asked her the price, and sometimes even haggled a bit. When paying, we usually gave her more money than necessary, requiring her to give back some change. For example, if a chopstick cost 60 cents, we would generally give her one dollar, so she had to return 40 cents.
At the beginning, all prices were set by her. As a child, regardless of whether the price was high or low, it was always a relatively whole and simple number, such as 1 yuan or 200 yuan. She generally did not use complex pricing like "1.40 yuan" or "203 yuan" to make things difficult for herself.
After playing a few times, we subtly guided her towards slightly more complex calculations.
For instance, if popsicles originally cost 1 yuan each, we suggested that the price increased to 1.2 yuan each recently. We asked her if she wanted to raise the price as well, mentioning that raising the price could earn her an extra 20 cents per popsicle. When we gave her 2 yuan or 5 yuan, her calculations became more complex.
At first, Yinyin didn't like pricing with decimal points because it made her calculations more troublesome. So, when we went to outside convenience stores to buy things, I subtly guided her to notice that most goods in the store were priced with decimal points. Gradually, her "prices" also started to include decimal points.
As the complexity of the calculations in the "running a convenience store" game increased, the transition should be natural to maintain the child's interest. Initially, we generally played within the range of addition and subtraction under 100. Later, we gave her some suggestions, thinking that certain items should be expensive, allowing her to set prices in the hundreds. I remember that around the age of four, Yinyin could mentally calculate addition and subtraction within 500, basically learned through "doing business."
The "running a convenience store" game continued until Yinyin was in second or third grade. When she was learning multiplication and division, I subtly incorporated related knowledge into the game. For example, if a pencil cost 9 fen, I required her to buy 8 pencils at once; or if a pack of cookies cost 4 yuan with 10 pieces inside, but I only wanted to buy 3 pieces. In this way, she had to use her multiplication and division knowledge to calculate.
The process of "running a convenience store" was essentially the child continuously solving "application problems," which had a very good effect on her mathematical enlightenment. Mathematics education should not immediately pull the child into abstract numbers, nor should it overwhelm them with dry and boring calculations. Instead, let the child feel the numbers through games, making them realize that calculations are not abstract concepts but useful tools existing in everyday life, closely connected to our daily routines. When other students were struggling with abstract numbers in primary school, Yinyin could see through every problem at a glance, finding them too simple.
After finishing second grade, Yinyin directly entered fourth grade, and at the time, the school’s principal had some concerns. He mentioned that third grade was a crucial year with more challenging content, especially in mathematics. Therefore, I found the math textbooks for both semesters of third grade and studied them with Yinyin for ten days. She grasped the material well, and after starting school, she scored the highest among some students who had already completed third grade.
It wasn’t that Yinyin had any particular talent; rather, the relevant knowledge had already been used during her "running a convenience store" experience. Acting as a "shopkeeper" enhanced her mathematical thinking ability significantly, making her studies much easier. Children have a natural tendency to imitate adult life. I remember how happy I was playing house when I was a child. I imagine that Yinyin's feeling of "running a convenience store" must have been similar to mine playing house, except that she didn't realize she was learning calculations during the game.
Therefore, why must learning be "boring"? Learning can also happen joyfully, and learning in happiness will make children learn better. We all hope that children enjoy studying. If learning is made as appealing as a liquor-filled chocolate, how can children not like it? And if learning is made as unpalatable as a Buffalo Gall Pills, how can they possibly like it?
There are several issues to note when playing the "running a convenience store" game:
First, do not reveal your intentions to the child.
Playing such games aims to teach children arithmetic. If you disclose this purpose or if the child senses it, they may lose interest in the game. Let the child feel that this is just a game, purely for fun. Adults should participate seriously and sincerely, immersing themselves fully in the game without lecturing or criticizing the child for miscalculations.
Second, avoid making the child feel embarrassed.
When we played with Yinyin, at the beginning, she had no sense of how much to charge for items, completely randomly setting prices. For example, she priced a small piece of "cake" at 100 yuan, and her father exaggeratedly said, "Ah, so expensive!" Her father was trying to create an atmosphere based on his familiar market prices, but his tone frightened Yinyin. From her father's tone, Yinyin felt that her price was too absurd, leaving her unsure of what to do. When asked about the price of the next item, she became timid and uncertain, hesitantly saying a number and waiting for the adults' reactions to confirm if it was correct. Continuing this way, the child's focus would shift away from the game, leading to tension and boredom over time. I quickly intervened, telling her father that the cake smelled particularly fragrant and was worth that price.
Later, I told Yinyin's father that no matter how much the child prices items, he should not react dramatically. Do not interfere with the child's thinking based on your life experiences. The child does not have a concept of market value. We aim to teach her arithmetic, not business skills, so how she prices items is not important. She can price a kilogram of rice at 2 yuan or a gold ring at 4 jiao.
Third, do not let calculations overwhelm the child.
Parents should remember that this is a game, not a math class. Parents can develop the child's calculation abilities through "buying and selling," but they should not rush the process. In the game, prioritize the child's enjoyment first and learning second. The difficulty of calculations can gradually increase, but avoid letting overly difficult calculations interfere with the fun. If the child repeatedly feels the difficulty of calculations during transactions, they will feel frustrated and lose interest.
Fourth, do not force the child to play.
Do not frequently play the same game just to make the child learn. After I shared this game with some people, some parents played it with their children every day. Initially, the child showed interest, but after three consecutive days, they lost interest. The parents then tried to persuade the child to continue.
There are also times when, right at the start of the game, a transaction hasn't even been completed, but the child suddenly doesn't want to play anymore. In such cases, parents should not force the child. As soon as the child shows disinterest, stop immediately to avoid ruining their appetite for the game. If parents appear too enthusiastic during the game, it might make the child aware of your intentions.
Fifth, use real money as much as possible.
Initially, when I played with Yinyin, I didn't want to use real money, considering it unhygienic, so I used paper slips with denominations written on them. However, I found that children weren't interested in fake money. Once children realize that money can exchange for desired items, they become fascinated with it. Using real money makes them more engaged in the game, and washing their hands afterward suffices. Writing this, I realized that recording each "profit" and saving the earned money separately, using it to buy things later, might stimulate their interest in playing even more. This was something we didn't do when Yinyin was younger, but we speculate it would be better.
Sixth, increase the variability of the game, making each session slightly different.
Generally, children prefer to be the "shopkeeper," especially at the beginning. After playing a few times, to maintain the game's freshness, you can switch roles with the child, bringing them back to the role of a customer. Regardless of who plays the customer, different roles or combinations can be created. Sometimes it could be grandpa and grandma, sometimes little friends, sometimes doctors or teachers. Different identities have different matters and needs, creating many stories. You can also involve various toys at home, such as plush dogs and bears coming to buy things, with someone speaking and paying for them.
Besides "running a convenience store," Yinyin and I also "sold vegetables." Sometimes she enjoyed being a vegetable vendor at the market. We drew various vegetables and fruits on small pieces of paper or found various substitutes and played selling vegetables with her. For this, we specially bought a small scale from a pharmacy, as the vendors at the market commonly used handheld scales with bowls and rods.
The insight from "running a convenience store" is that learning combined with life is more effective, and education originating from life can be omnipresent. Teaching children does not necessarily require sitting beside a desk; with a bit of effort, educational opportunities can be found everywhere. For example, when teaching children to count from 1 to 10, if you simply repeat the numbers orally, the child hears only the sounds without understanding what they represent. They don't comprehend what these "1, 2, 3, 4" mean. But if, while carrying the child up and down the stairs, you count the steps as you walk, or when opening a box of chocolates, you count the number of pieces before eating, associating the numbers with specific actions helps the child remember faster and establish the concept of numbers.
I clearly remember when Yinyin was two and a half years old, once her father returned from a trip and bought her a set of six Wahaha milk yogurt drinks. After drinking one in the morning, I put the rest away. In the afternoon, she suddenly asked me, "Where are the five Wahahas?" She actually knew there were five left, which surprised me. At the time, she couldn't do addition or subtraction, so her concept of numbers must have come from our frequent counting of various things together.
Even after entering formal schooling, children can still learn lessons through "activities." I discovered that having the child act as a "little teacher" giving lessons to parents is a pretty good activity.
When Yinyin first started elementary school, the teacher was teaching them phonetics. To help her master it quickly, I told her that mom didn't study phonetics well as a child because we spoke dialects where I'm from, and the teachers didn't teach us phonetics properly. Since you're learning phonetics at school, could you teach mom when you come home in the evening? I asked earnestly, and Yinyin happily agreed. She then came home every day to teach me what she had learned, and I listened attentively and learned seriously.
During the "little teacher" game, I paid attention to the following issues:
First, in designing such activities, "empower" the child, allowing them to "take charge."
Being a little teacher, like running a convenience store, involves children applying and learning knowledge in practice. A common feature of both activities is that they make the child feel "empowered," which is one reason why such games attract children. Therefore, in these activities, let the child be the main character and initiator, avoiding making them feel passive or commanded by adults.
Second, choose subjects with relatively fixed answers or content for the child to explain.
In terms of language arts, I only let Yinyin teach phonetics because language learning is open-ended, making it hard for children to explain and less meaningful to do so. I generally let her explain math because math is rigorously closed. Additionally, I noticed that explaining should not be done frequently. Generally, I observed her learning quietly, and only when I noticed she hadn't mastered something well would I ask her to explain it to me. Similar to "running a convenience store," don't let the child feel bored during the activity, and find ways to protect their interest.
Third, the way parents make requests should be natural, not always using the excuse of not learning well as a child.
For example, sometimes I would find an error in her homework caused by unclear concepts. Then I pretended to be surprised and said, "This question seems correct, why did the teacher mark it wrong?" I then called Yinyin over to check if she made a mistake or if the teacher judged incorrectly. During this process, I pretended to be confused while guiding her thoughts toward the correct direction. To figure out whether she or the teacher was wrong, Yinyin would carefully analyze with me, rethinking the concept. Of course, the result proved that she made a mistake, but at least she corrected mom's "error," giving her a sense of accomplishment. Moreover, the previously unclear concept was now basically understood.
Fourth, do not criticize the child's mistakes during the explanation process, and never mock their errors.
Since parents are acting as students, they must be sincere and listen carefully to the child's explanation. Similar to running a convenience store, don't let the child detect your intentions; otherwise, they might think their parents are testing them, making them feel neither proud nor interested. If the child's thinking or explanation has errors, address them tactfully or guide them toward the correct direction. Never let the child feel ashamed because they explained poorly. Any hint of criticism or mockery from parents during this process will make the child extremely discouraged and lose confidence in explaining. Ensure that the child experiences a sense of achievement during this process.
In 2004, I attended a lecture by the renowned contemporary educator and then-principal of Beijing No. 4 Middle School, Liu Changming. Before becoming principal, he was an outstanding physics teacher at the school. He recounted that when he was a physics teacher, if a student made a mistake on a test question, he would have that student redo the question and then explain it to the entire class—"doing it again" and "explaining it again" produced entirely different effects. Being able to clearly explain something necessarily involved serious thought and clear understanding, which could then be articulated clearly. Explained concepts leave deeper impressions in the brain—while "doing it again" is merely relearning, "explaining it again" becomes a form of practice, an application activity for students that allows them to understand better.
This activity can also be applied in families. When parents want to tutor their children, instead of doing so directly, they can let the child "tutor" them once. Of course, you need to handle the situation cleverly to make the activity occur naturally without making the child feel tense or awkward.
I heard from a parent whose son struggled with math when he first entered high school. He easily skipped over problems without delving deeply. The parent reviewed the son's math textbook and found that the content had exceeded his own knowledge base, making it impossible for him to tutor his son. Following the general approach, one might hire a tutor or enroll the child in an after-school tutoring program. However, after considering the quality and convenience of external tutoring, the parent decided it would be better to learn the material himself and then tutor his son. Thus, he began studying his son's math textbook.
At the time, the son's math level was still somewhat better than his father's. Whenever the father had questions, he would ask his son. During the explanations, the son also encountered many unclear areas, so they researched together. For unresolved issues, the son would ask teachers or classmates at school and then explain them to his father upon returning home. The father acted as a student seriously, studying diligently. When he noticed significant improvement in his own math skills, the son's math grades also improved noticeably. Moreover, the son learned to pursue answers to problems rather than wait for others to explain them, achieving better results than attending remedial classes.
In summary, rather than worrying excessively about exam scores, spending money and energy to push children to study, parents should design and create activities involving relevant knowledge for their children to engage in, providing opportunities for them to apply their learned knowledge to solve practical problems. Practice is the best "after-school tutoring." Besides the aforementioned "running a convenience store" and "being a little teacher," there are certainly many other methods. For example, when settling household accounts, parents could claim the calculator is broken and ask the child to help calculate manually; when electrical appliances break, parents could work together with their children, who have learned electricity in physics class, to attempt repairs. Especially identifying knowledge to grasp from the child's interests and incorporating these interests into activity designs is the best approach. The great educator Vasily Sukhomlinsky believed, "The reasons for children's academic backwardness lie in their inability to think about various things, phenomena, dependencies, and interconnections in the surrounding world, which have not become the source of their thinking... Letting actual things teach children to think is an extremely important condition for making all normal children smart, quick-witted, diligent, and inquisitive."
The core educational philosophy of the famous American educator John Dewey is that children should learn from life and through doing, not from books. He believed that the ever-successful teaching method in education is "giving students things to do, not just things to learn."
Therefore, when parents want their children to improve academically, they shouldn't rush to pull them to books or after-school programs but should create opportunities for children to apply their learned knowledge to solve problems. Regardless of what they learn, if we create practical opportunities like "running a convenience store" for them, children are likely not to suffer from the troubles of studying.
Special Reminder:
When playing the "running a convenience store" game, adults should approach it with seriousness and simplicity, fully engaging in the game without any preaching, and absolutely not scolding the child for miscalculations.
In the game, place the child's enjoyment first and learning second.
Mathematics education should not immediately pull the child into abstract numbers or overwhelm them with dry and boring calculations. Let the child experience numbers through games, helping them realize that calculations are not abstract but useful tools present in everyday life, closely tied to our daily routines.
Even after entering formal schooling, children can still learn lessons through "activities." Having the child act as a "little teacher" giving lessons to parents is a pretty good activity. When parents want to tutor their children, they could let the child "tutor" them once.
In designing such activities, parents should find ways to "empower" the child, allowing them to take charge and become the main characters and initiators of the activity, avoiding making them feel passive or commanded by adults.