When everyone was seated, Zhu Yanyi walked to the center of the room carrying a woven grass basket. A small stool stood in the middle. She did not sit down. Instead, she placed the basket beside the stool, opened it, and took out two grasshoppers made of straw. She placed them on the stool and asked, "How many grasshoppers do you see?"
"Two!" the children answered in unison.
Zhu Yanyi then took out three more, holding them in her hand. "How many am I holding now?"
"Three." It was obvious, so everyone knew the answer.
She placed the three on the stool with the first two. "So, how many are there in total?"
"Five!" The children laughed.
Zhu Yanyi nodded. "That is right, five. This makes a math problem." She picked up a piece of chalk and walked to the blackboard. She was not tall enough, so she stood on a stool to reach. "Two grasshoppers is the number 2. We have learned this. The number 2 looks like a little duck, doesn't it?" The students laughed. Zhu Yanyi smiled as she wrote. "Then there are three. The number 3 looks like an ear. Very clear, right? This symbol in the middle is a plus sign. Together, it means two plus three equals five. This number 5 looks like a hook. We call it five. It represents the five grasshoppers."
Zhu Yanyi wrote "3 + 2 = 5" on the board. She said, "Look, this is the simplest math problem. Math is in our daily life. We can change it. For example, when you go home, you might see small stones. You find three at the front door and two at the back door. That is five stones. If you skip one stone on the water, you have four left. Math problems come from life. They are simple and fun, aren't they?"
"Yes!" the children shouted.
Zhu Yanyi asked, "Has anyone had an experience like this?" She wanted to build their interest in math first.
"I have!" "I have!" The classroom became lively. Everyone raised their hands eagerly.
Zhu Yanyi pointed randomly at Zhang Xiaofeng. "Let’s ask our class monitor to speak first."
Class monitor Zhang Xiaofeng stood up. "Once, I went to my uncle’s house with my dad. My uncle gave me one candy. My aunt also gave me one candy. I had two candies. Later, my uncle’s son came. He asked for one candy. I gave it to him. I had one left. But I was worried he would ask for more. So, I ate the last one myself. In the end, I had nothing left." Zhang Xiaofeng scratched his head, looking a bit shy. The classmates laughed loudly.
Zhu Yanyi laughed too. "See, our monitor has a math problem too. First, one candy plus one candy is 1 + 1 = 2. Then, she gave one to her brother and ate one herself. That is 2 – 1 – 1 = 0. These are two problems. Of course, we can calculate them together: 1 + 1 – 1 – 1 = 0. Simple, right?" Zhu Yanyi made a face showing that math was easy.
"Simple!" The students were interested. They did not expect math to be so fun. Many started thinking about things that happened in their lives. Some even started observing things when they went home. Funniest of all, someone said while eating, "Mom put a bowl of rice for Dad, a bowl for my sister, a bowl for me, and a bowl for herself. Mom made four bowls of rice in total. Then Mom ate one, Dad ate one, my sister ate one, and I ate one. In the end, we finished them all."