Didn't We Have Some Short People Around Here?

 It's high time we had a post about them!

Choclo and Oob are having a splendid school year.  Anything either of them can do, the other wants to do (better).  This makes for amazing progress...

Choclo is on the very last of the last (fifth) box of Bob Books.  Hooray, Choclo!  He has also started reading everything he sees.  The other day we were driving on the highway and every time we passed an exit sign, he would announce it with a cheerful, "EggggZIT!"

I had no idea there were that many exits, let alone that each one was marked by two or three signs...



Oob is in the middle of the second box of Bob Books, and has just shifted from sounding the letters individually to saying the sounds slowly together.  Go Oob!

Both boys are adding and subtracting, but with varying degrees of reliability.  I took out the chalk and a bag of mellocreme pumpkins and we headed for the driveway.  The key here is to make a number line with the space between numbers about the size of the kid's stride.

We started with just the number line and I waited while they ran up and down on it, counting forward and backward (it's actually faster to let them get that out of their system and then try your lesson - if they never finish, they weren't ready for your lesson but they still learned). 

Then I showed them my bag of pumkins and asked how many pumpkins they had. 

Zero.  Right!

Then I asked, if I gave them four pumpkins (place four pumpkins, one on each spot on the number line, counting aloud), how many would they have?

Four.  Right! Zero plus four is four!

But if they came along and ate two pumpkins (they each eat one) how many would you have?

Two. Right! Four pumpkins take away two pumpkins is two pumpkins!

Continue until they are sick, you are tired, or both.

Actually, as I did numbers that were larger than I wanted them to eat, I had a "big pumpkin eating monster" gobble up large numbers of pumpkins (I put them in my pocket and belched loudly). 

The big trick is, whether you are picking them up or putting them down, count the pumpkins as you move them, then restate the question conventionally: 11 pumpkins take away 7 pumpkins are 4 pumpkins!