And it only took me four kids to figure it out.
Tonight, Sid asked Prairie to put 6 forks on the table. My 2-year-old goes to the utensil drawer and begins to pull out forks one at a time, counting carefully —“1 . . . .2 . . . . 3 . . . . . 4″ (At this point, I stop what I’m doing to watch her, fairly amazed. She continues ” . . . . .9 . . . . . . 10!”
She closes the utensil drawer and places a fork beside each of six plates. I was even more amazed.
It is fairly common for young children to learn to count, and I don’t bother teaching my children how to count, so that is not what I found impressive. I couldn’t believe, that at age two, Sid could say 6 to her and she understand immediately what 6 is.
Sidney, Lincoln and Rachel did not have that understanding at Prairie’s age. It is not their fault. I just didn’t know how to teach math concepts to babies and toddlers when they were younger. And I’ve not even been real consistent with Prairie, but by george, she’s learned it anyway.
In case, you have a young child and think it would be fun to experiment with how much they can learn, I highly recommend you check out Glenn Doman’s method of teaching math. It is easy and totally not time-intensive. Some of their claims seem a little stretched, but particular aspects of their methods just make plain sense.
Prairie Sings 