The only downside to helping Aimee achieve her goal for the week (see previous post) was that I didn't have much time for Drew's schoolwork this week. I'm not usually concerned with that, because I do believe in the theory that boys should only begin to be concerned with formal schoolwork at around 7, and Drew is not even there yet. But I do at least like to throw him something now and then, so yesterday evening at dinner, after he had done nothing at all that could be considered "school" (which doesn't, of course, mean he wasn't learning), I wanted to see if he could tackle some division.
"Ok, Drew, let's say I have 12 pieces of candy, and I want to give it to the four of you. How many pieces will each of you get?"
He tapped his chin in concentration as he thought about it. "Well," he replied, "the first person would get four..."
I waited to see if he would correct himself.
"And then the second person would get four... and then the third person would get four..." He furrowed his brow. "Oh man - someone's not going to get any!"
The combination of his perfect logic that gave him the wrong answer to the original problem, but yet an entirely correct answer to the "switch-around" problem (after all, he did divide the candy evenly), and his genuine concern that someone was going to miss out, was all so funny, at least in the moment, that I laughed until I cried, while his father helped him figure out how to get that fourth person some candy, dang it.
(And I'm not entirely a bad mother for laughing - I did assure him, through my tears, that it was one of the best answers to a word problem, and 100% right, in its own way.)
1 comment:
I love it! Creativity and constructivism at work. :)
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