All About the Boy!

Happy Halloween!

Labels: Diego, Halloween

posted by Sandy at 7:19 AM

It's about the numbers

Logan's latest fascination is math.

More specifically, he seems to be developing a fondness for addition and subtraction. His favorite games include everything from the deck of math flash cards to the "Sum Swamp" board game.

He adds numbers when we walk. He subtracts when we get ready to start our day. He does fractions as he eats lunch with Grandma. He's immersing himself in it. . .and he knows more than he, or we, realize.

For example:

Mommy said, "Logan, what's 8 plus 3."
Logan held out his hands with 8 fingers up. He put up two more and then sighed with annoyance. "Mommy! I don't have 11 fingers!"

Ahh, hello?

Or today's game of Sum Swamp. Logan rolled the three dice. The number 3, the number 4, and a minus sign. "What's 3 minus 4?" Logan said allowed.

"Well, for now, you always want to put the bigger number first," I told him and rearranged the dice to show him the new equation.

"Why?"

"You can subtract 4 from 3...but then you'd end up with, well 1 less than zero. If it was dollars, you'd owe someone a dollar."

"Ok," said Logan, "so in this game, what do I do with my piece if I rolled a negative one?"

Moments later Logan rolled 4+4. He didn't use his fingers. He didn't even think about it. He said simply, "I move 8!"

I tilted the plus sign cube on an angle. I flipped one 4 over to the 2. "Logan look. If this sign were an "X" and not a plus," I explained, "it would say 4 times 2. That's another kind of math - multiplication. It's saying, what is four, two times? Four plus four?"

He smiled. He smiled very big. "EIGHT!" he yelled almost loud enough to wake Megan.

I nodded and I explained that if 4+4=8 then so did 4x2. I turned the 2 to a 3. "Ok, do you want to try to figure out what 4x3 is?"

He stared at it. I reminded him that multiplication meant adding the same number over and over - again using the times two example. He grinned. He held up two hands - four fingers each.

"Mommy, hold up your finger fingers," he commanded. I did. His eyes rolled over our fingers. He poked at them and quietly counted.

"Twelve!" he called out. "Four times three is twelve."

The kid is four and he's already better in math than me.

posted by Sandy at 9:46 PM