5 dimes, times 10 cents each. My son (7 years old) says 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 while holding up fingers. So he doesn't see how ten times works yet. He's a smart kid, so this is surprising to me.
I have no interest in doing anything about it. I trust he gets enough math thinking in our family to be just fine. I'm just intrigued.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Yet if you just give him several examples of the same nature in a row, he will notice the pattern and probably will say "AHA" and will have a moment of joy. Like he did several times when we played with the ruler.
ReplyDeleteOne of the "good practices" in my opinion is to amplify math inherent in activities by inviting kids to look at several similar examples at once. Without revealing what it's for - so it's like a delicious puzzle. Giving several examples after you told the point, though, is rather pointless. Wait a minute, that describes 99% math workbooks...
Ahh, Maria, you're our math fairy!
ReplyDeleteYou can get away with it. I can't. If there's just the right moment, maybe. I'll be sure to post about it if the opportunity to be totally playful with it appears.
Once kids taste that "AHA" moment, and you somehow identify (name) it for them, they often want the experience again. "There is an interesting pattern here - want to see?" is usually what it takes with my daughter. Sometimes she says "No" - because she's tired, usually, and this activity takes a lot of energy.
ReplyDeletei still "count on" sometimes
ReplyDeleteeven though i'm also pretty good
at adding.
depends on the context and my mood
and who knows what. keeping score
in scrabble? my score so far in a given word
i'm working on is 14? there's a 3-point tile?
i'll look under if for "double letter score"
(let's say it's not there): i'll go 15, 16, 17
mentally. one less thing to think about
or something; no need to break out the adder.
(this instance didn't need a "carry"...
but then i didn't have to *notice* this...)
and so i urge caution in concluding
that in any given instance any subject
"doesn't see [ ] yet" merely because
they've *not used it*...
one might instead have *rejected* it
(consciously or not)...
phenomenology is much harder than people think.
Thanks, Owen! Good point. And of course, that leads me to thinking that this isn't and on or off thing. Maybe he's partially got it, and only uses it in some contexts.
ReplyDelete[I don't know what phenomenology means, and it wasn't in dictionary.com. I'm wondering where to look to follow that thought...]
i'm first aware of having encountered
ReplyDelete"phenomenology"-- the word--
in an el-cheapo SF-parody
from the 70's: _dark_star_.
but it makes up part of my
philosophical furniture now
and i forget just how.
dennett will have had something
to do with it, though, so you could
look here for starters.
the wikipedia entry for p'ogy itself
goes far beyond the depth *i*'ve
read in *any* philosophical field.