Tuesday, December 06, 2011

My son the mathematician

A few weeks ago Doug was off to work earlier than usual one day.  In the wee hours of the morning-- while it was still very very dark and very very early-- Caleb crawls into my bed.  As he snuggles in beside me he whispers in my ear: "Can we do some hard math right now Mommy?".  Seriously?


The kid does not get his interest in math from his momma... that is for sure.  But he LOVES math.  He loves to do " hard math"-- which is really just basic addition and subtraction :)  We've been working on Caleb's math skills and he is loving every minute of it.  I finally broke down and bought him some flash cards the other day and we've been doing a little hard math around here ever since...

A few days ago the kids found a set of poker chips-- don't know where they managed to find them... but find them they did.  And these chips have been ALL over my house.  Poker chips in the kitchen, the bedrooms, in our beds, under the couch, in the bathroom... you know how it goes.  Well today I decided to redeem those blasted poker chips and use them for good... we're using them for math!


I needed an activity to keep Caleb busy this morning so I grabbed a big piece of paper and divided it up into 10 squares that were labeled 10, 20, 30... you get the idea.  Then I had Caleb count out the chips and put 10 in each square so that he could work on his 10's counting skills.  He's usually pretty good at counting to 100 but like most 4 year olds he still needed a bit of practice :)

He seriously thought it was the best game ever.  So did I :)



And finally-- 100!  Math ROCKS!


Then we used the chips to help him solve some of the more difficult addition problems on his flash cards.  He can rattle off most single digit addition problems but when it comes to the double digits he has trouble.  And yes he IS only 4 :)  But, when I showed him how he could use the poker chips to help him figure out the problems he was doing amazing!


I love it that my kid loves math :)  And thankfully he's still only learning basic math-- because if he keeps developing his math skills at this rate his Daddy is going to have to take over!

8 comments:

kelly ens said...

i know he's your first born so you don't have a whole lot to compare to (other than your eldest nephew), but just so you know...that's advanced. really.
wow.

Janelle Schultz said...

Caleb & Jaydin seem to have the same interests! Too bad you guys didn't live in Kelowna. They could quiz each other on math questions :)

Kelsie-Lynn said...

That is pretty incredible! Nice work Caleb!

Team AC said...

wow, that is amazing... keep it up, Caleb.

Mel said...

Ok, if he can count to 100 and he's only 4??? That IS amazing - you have a real smartie on your hands!!! I have a 4 year old who can count to 10..but it's in Turkish!! So I suppose that's pretty amazing as well (*grin*).

Bonnie said...

I remember thinking that Caleb was going to be one of those 'child geniuses' back when you used to show us the lego stuff he would build at like the age of 2 or 3. And now this. Yup... he's a child genius.
Betcha he'll be a famous engineer someday. Can I use the poker chips to bet on that? ;)

Jeff and Jocelyn said...

Aiden is also obsessed with math! He is always skipping the writing parts of his workbook and doing the math. I am defintely going to "steal" this idea, he would LOVE it! Counting to 100! that is crazy good :)

Ashraqat Store said...

God Bless you for being a good mother
I have been looking for some exercises for the kids so they could learn faster and better
this is really helpful tips
thanks
Best wishes for you and Caleb