MATH

One of the joys that has come with having my kids home with me all day is being able to watch them grow, learn, play and experience life. The other day I shared a pleasant experience with my youngest and it involved math, something I have always had an aversion to. Several decades ago,  I never would have thought that any pleasant experience could come from math. Now, as with so many other things, experiencing it again, in a new way, through the eyes of my child, I've found it can be completely different. She had been playing with her abacus and said "You know what mom? 10 10s are 100. 10 times 10 is really just another way to say 10 10s. And, there are a lot of ways to make 100,  like 50 plus 50 and 90 plus 10."  She was playing with numbers for the fun of playing with numbers, but also, to glean just a little bit more information about the world around her. She was sharing that information with me like she would a picture she had just drawn or a bug she had just found. No stress. No fear. No confusion. Just satisfaction in knowing that she understood a little bit more than she did a little while ago. 

In the past few years I've read a lot about math. Yes, It seems I learned far more about math by READING about it than 12 years in school and one semester in college  taught me. Although I still use my fingers and sometimes get confused about remainders, I'm not quite as averse to it as I once was. I started thinking about the difference between what math looks like in my home and most of my previous experience with it and this is what I came up with......

Math is......

my youngest using her abacus to figure out how many weeks she will have to save her money to buy a dog, compared to how many it will take for a cat, compared to how many it will take for a mouse

all 3 of my kids figuring out how long they would have to save for a trampoline if they put together all their allowances and birthday money. Then saving, counting and managing that money with occasional allowances for a soda apiece.

my youngest finding change all around the house and counting it.

my son spending countless hours on origami everything.

my youngest asking what time it is and then saying that means I have x amount of time until my friend gets home from school.

Legos.

puzzles.

Mancala.

my oldest two spending hours trying to figure out which opening move in Mancala will get them furthest in the game and if you can win in a single move. They haven't figured out the latter, however, I would not recommend playing with them. There's a really good chance you'll lose.

my son playing with his Rubik's Cube, determined to figure out the pattern to solving it. He's getting close.

a 20 questions type game my oldest 2 made up using probability to guess a random 4 digit number the other would make up......their brains are far more mathematically inclined than mine so I'm still not entirely sure how they did it.

my youngest blissfully going around the house with a tape measure, measuring everything in sight.

little scraps of paper found laying around the house with various trigonometry, algebra and geometry problems on them when my oldest was fascinated with The Khan Academy. http://www.khanacademy.org/

my youngest playing with her calculator.

 

my youngest making 3 and 4 digit  multiplication problems for my son and then figuring out if he was right using her calculator.

measuring.

converting ounces to cups and millimeters to teaspoons.

figuring out how many hot chocolate packets everyone gets.

my youngest playing with coffee stirrers and remarking that 3 3s are 9 and 7 and 2 are 9 and 11 take away 2 are 9.

not scary.

usually fun.

functional.

interesting.

useful.