Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Mind blowing math

This morning, L and were sitting at the table as she ate and went through my mail. Because that 6-year-old has no sense of privacy. She found a paper with coupons and wanted to know what all the numbers on them added up to.


She would do well at couponing.

I found a paper and showed her how to add 20 + 20 + 10 in a column, adding the last column of 0s, then the first column with the small numbers she knew. This new discovery was so fun, she wanted to continue. I wrote out a similar problem and she did it perfectly. She started writing out her own problems, but the numbers in her first column got too big, so I showed her a number line to add 6 + 6 + 6.

And she understood the concept right away.

She wrote out a bigger problem and did it all by herself.

Then another.

To challenge her (as the whole 3 number, 2-column addition and number line had been just soooooo easy) I showed her that the last column didn't have to be just 0s. I put small numbers in there, and it barely fazed her. She whipped right through several like 21 + 16 + 62, laughing when she figured out the answer was 99.

All of this took approximately 7 minutes. And it only took that long because I had to drag Mr. at Home away from his desk to witness the math miracle.

In her kindergarten curriculum, they're working on 3 + 3.

At the dining room table, she's about to take over the family budget.

2 comments:

jinksto said...

How much do you think she would charge to do my taxes?

Valerie said...

jinksto - 1 webkinz, 2 baby zhuzhu pets, and a Carowinds season pass. At least that would be my best guess.