Tanya and Tinku play with cars
Tanya was 6 now. She had played with dolls many times with Kate. She got bored of it for two reasons. One reason was that Tanya wanted to play with other things too. The other was that Kate just looked at her dolls and said how beautiful they were but did not like any counting games.
One day, Tanya went over to play with Tinku. She knew Tinku loved playing with cars. So she took all her toy cars in a bag. Tinku was ready waiting for her at the door. The two greeted each other and went to Tinku’s room.
Tanya: I brought all my 4 cars to play.
Tinku: I also took out my 8 cars and 2 buses. Let’s play with just the cars first. So between you and I, we have 8 plus 4 which is 12 cars. What do you want to play?
Driving cars
Tanya: We will pretend that the area in the left side of your room is your house and the place in the right is our school. Let’s drive the cars from the house to the school and then back.
Tinku: We have 12 cars. Do you want to start with all the cars at our house? Okay, boom – boom – boom, I have now driven 2 of my cars to the school. Now we have 10 cars left at our house.
Tanya: What is this boom – boom – boom? Are your cars very noisy? My cars are very quiet. I will drive all 4 of them to the school. See, they don’t make any noise.
Tinku: Before, we had 10 cars remaining at our house and 2 in the school. You drove 4 more to the school. So we have 10 minus 4 which is 6 cars at our house and 2 plus 4 which is 6 at the school. We have equal number of cars at either place. That’s interesting.
Tanya: Now you drive 3 of your cars, and I will drive 3. Let us take them all to the school.
Tinku: So, together we drove 6 cars to the school. With 6 cars at the school already, we will all the 12 cars there. Let us bring them back to our house and then we will play a different game.
How many people can travel in the cars?
Tanya: What game do you want to play?
Tinku: How many people can travel in these cars? We will say 5 persons can go in one car.
Tanya: So in my 4 cars, 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 or you can say 4 x 5 persons can go. I counted. It comes out to 20 persons.
Tinku: Now, I will count for my 8 cars. That will be 8 x 5. This will take longer to figure out.
Tanya: No, it will not. I will say that instead of 8 cars you have 4 + 4 cars. I already know that 20 persons can go in 4 cars That means your 8 cars can carry 20 + 20 which is 40 persons. Together, we have 12 cars (4 + 4 + 4). So we can carry 20 + 20 + 20 persons which is 60 which is the same as 12 x 5.
Tinku: Don’t forget my buses. By counting the number of windows on my big bus, I think 40 persons can go in it. My small bus should also carry 15 people.
Adding 60 and 55
Tanya: That’s great. That means we can carry 40 + 15 which is 55 persons in the buses.
Tinku: It is going to be hard to add 60 and 55. I don’t have that many fingers.
Tanya: You don’t need them. First tell me what is 6 plus 5.
Tinku: I can add 6 plus 5 on my fingers. It is 11. So you mean 60 + 50 should be 110.
Tanya: Now to get 60 + 55, you can add 5 to 110 because the buses can carry 55 people which is 5 more than 50.
Tinku: 111, 112, 113, 114, 115 so 110 plus 5 is 115. That was a good way of doing this Tanya. So, in all our cars and buses we can carry 115 people. I don’t have that many friends to carry.
Tinku’s mom saw that the kids had been playing for a while. She called them to the kitchen for some refreshments.
Tanya played with Kate and Tinku many more times.
Challenge
Look through your window or sit in the front door of your house (whatever your parents allow). Count how many cars go by? Count how many bicycles go by? Count how many cars plus bicycles go by.
No solution is given to this challenge.
Supplementary
Tinku and Tanya
Tinku: Tanya, we have three types of cars at home – a family car, a big van and a pickup truck.
Tanya: Each of them has 4 tyres. That makes it 4 x 3 = 4 + 4 + 4 = 12 tyres.
Tinku: You are forgetting something.
Tanya: What ?
Tinku: We need different types of tyres for summer and winter.
Tanya: Wow, that makes it 8 tyres per car.
Tinku: Yes, we have a total of 8 x 3 = 8 + 8 + 8 = 24 tyres.
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