As children get to be school aged, their language and math get more complex. Ask “How do you know?” and listen to their amazing thinking.
Counting fingers A while back I met a mathematician. He is the husband of a colleague. He found my Talking Math with Your Kids project fascinating and asked repeatedly for additional examples of the conversations I have had with Griffin and Tabitha. He referred to...
I took the kids camping this weekend. Jay Cooke State Park is lovely. I recommend a visit if you have never been. We had the following conversation at the campsite on Saturday evening. Me: Griff, we have two pears and three people. What should we do about...
Long ago, we were given the game "What's Gnu?" as a gift. What better time to dig it out than in the waning days of summer leading up to the return of school? So Tabitha (six years old) and I did just that a couple weeks back. Neither one of our children has been...
I was in New York City for a conference recently. I arrived at JFK airport on a Monday evening and took public transportation into the city. I observed the following scene. --- At about 8:30 p.m., a mother and her (roughly) 6-year old twin girls board the train and...
I take both kids grocery shopping pretty much every weekend, and I have since each was an infant. It's a routine for us in which Mommy gets some quiet time around the house and I get some extended time around town with my little ones. This time of year, the...
This post follows up on a conversation I had with Griffin a while back about the height of the Giant Slide at the Minnesota State Fair. Our house in St Paul sits on top of an odd hill; higher than others around it. Historical reasons for this are murky but it makes...
Those Eggo mini-waffles are paying off. We had this conversation the other day... Me: There you are, Tabitha. Two sets of waffles. Tabitha (six years old): That's 7. No...8!Me: [washing dishes with my back turned to her] Right. Two sets of four is eight.T:...