Yesterday, Helen came home from school with a sheet of paper that had addition problems on it.
5 + 5 = ___ with her childlike scrawl proudly announcing “10” in the blank.
There were 9 problems on the page, each one with the correct answer in the blank. (She takes after me! She takes after me! Yay!)
Last night was “Sharing Night” at the school, where the kids show the parents what they do at school. I was excited to go and see some of the things she’s been doing, and I especially wanted to see how she did the math.
It’s neat. They have a board with little squares, and the kids set out little blocks of wood to represent the numbers being added, and then count the total number of blocks. She was a little rattled to have me there sitting and watching so she made a few mistakes, but when her SuperCool MathMommy had a big fat white eraser in her purse, I went up a few notches with my little kid. Then I think she started messing up on purpose, just so she could use the eraser.
Really cool. My not-yet-four-year-old is messing around with addition. That just makes me happy.
Next week I think they’re going to be introducing logarithms. Either that or compounding interest. It’s a tossup.