this a learning center based on mathematics game called Morabaraba

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Model Mathematics Centre (Morabaraba game)
Waste materials
Second-hand cutboard is used to creating
Morabaraba board.

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Instructions on how to use the model
Morabaraba will be the game to be played in my mathematics centre under the topic
called ‘the geometric shapes’ and ‘ratios’. Firstly learners should group themselves
into group of four learners, in each group two learners will play the game against to
each other and the other two learners will be observing and recording the score of
the two prayers, they must record the number of tokens each player achieved after
the end of the match. After one of the learners won, then the one were observing will
be their turn to play and those who were playing will be observing and recording the
score of tokens as well. After they all played the game then we will compare the
score of each group and looking the ratio won and lost token per each learner (the
player). Then they should answer the questions that are in the checklist as
assessment.
Assessment methods and assessment tools
Assessment methods for this model will be a direct observation and DATA collection
and the assessment tool will be observation checklist. Learners will fill on the
checklist their answers next to the questions that are there.
Checklist
Player Name:
Name of the game: Morabaraba
No of tokens achieved after game
Player 1 Player 2 Ratio per team
Team 1
Team 2
Ratio per player
Questions: Based on the shapes made up Morabaraba board
1. How many squares are in
the morabaraba board?
2. How many trapeziums are
in there?

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3. How many isosceles
trapeziums?
Essay
Introduction
Children are very interesting, they put playing on the first place of their life. They
prefer to not do anything and prefer to go for playing, they even forget to eat. They
can forget everything they learnt at school but it is rare for them to forget every rule
of the games they used to play, even though the game is new to them. Applying
same games in the classroom for learning purpose, will be a helpful learning to them
because will never forget the content and they will keep on doing even at home.
There are useful games that can be implemented to support learning such as board
games. In this lesson I will be using one of them.
Background and motivation for your mathematics centre
Mathematics is universal language it started to become more advance in western
countries, and it get here to people of Africa find difficulties to understand this
mathematical language and even now learners are still struggling to understand it.
We require more other strategies to teach them mathematics. Morabarabagame is
an indigenous game and many tribes they used to play it. Now it has discovered that
could be an effective strategy in teaching mathematics. And can be used in various
concepts of mathematics.
Motivation for this centre is that it is a game and will build learners ability to the next
level in mathematics and learners will be more effective to any mathematics problem
solving. Efficiency will be seen in the process of teaching and learning. This
mathematics centre allows pedagogy to take place in the under privilege
environment.
Literature overview on mathematics centres
Any model in school instruction, should be intended to guide the expectation of
learning, must be taken as one of its major components, the assessment of

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aptitudes. Board games are part of the shoestring teaching and learning approach.
Learners can learn a lot by playing a game, for example in natural sciences; using
the snakes and ladders games when studying ecology, where by a player who lands
on a square marked ‘you do not litter’ movies up the ladder closer to the winning
square on the board. A player who lands on a square marked ‘you use poisons in
your garden’ is bitten by a snake and must move backwards on the board (Conley et
al., 2010).
Morabaraba is also one of the famous board game people has been played ancient
times, even now is still existing. This game contains some of the mathematical
concepts such as symmetry, ratio and proportion, geometric shapes, logical
reasoning and counting (Nkopodi and Mosimege, 2009: 389). Thus morabaraba can
be played in the mathematics centre when deal with topics called ‘the geometric
shapes’ and ‘ratios’.
Nkopodi and Mosimege, (2009) emphasise that several mathematical concepts have
been recognised from the game, and they it can be used in the mathematics
classroom to encourage the learning of mathematics because learners enjoy playing
the game, and they also found that the use of this game encourages spontaneous
interaction amongst learners as they communicate their activities to fellow
participants.
SWOT analyses
This is a strategy we usual use to assess learners whether they cope with content or
not. In terms of this mathematics centre, allows learners to achieve more knowledge
about concepts of mathematics and can alsohelp to reduce workload of teachers.
Learners obtain unforgettable content because the strategy is familiar to their world
of playing. Any possible weaknesses in this situation might learners will experience
is that other learners never played this game before, so they will be a lack of
understanding towards the game. This teaching strategy allows interaction between
learners to occur, therefore the acquisition of knowledge will be broader within them,
and they will share how they understand the topic or content. Threat is that, this

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strategy could be not applicable to other concepts of mathematics. Not all chapters
in mathematics will allow this method to work.
Conclusion
There are many strategies that can be used to support learning, and other strategies
are games from ancient such as morabaraba. Mostly games can help learners to
achieve the outcome for reason being they are still children and they like to play
every day, they prefer to play as much as they want. In this model we were playing
mathematics game called morabaraba, learners work with hand-on manipulative,
and they were playing in small groups. By using this model can help a teacher to
identify learners with barriers to learning. And this model will be solution to the pass
rate of the subject in the country.

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References
Conley, W. et al. (2010). Becoming a Teacher. Cape Town. Philippa van Aardt.
Gould, R. (2010). Mathematics in Games, Sports, and Gambling: the games people
play. CRC Press: Boca Raton.
Nkopodi, N. and Mosimege, M. (2009). Incorporating the Indigenous Game of
Morabaraba in the learning of mathematics. South African Journal of Education, Vol
29:377-392.