Mommy Brag
Posted by TulipGirl | Under Family Journal Saturday Aug 13, 2005My kids are so cool.
T7 is great at mental math. We haven’t done much workbook math, but we’ve talked a lot about concepts and real life math. I popped my head into T7′s classroom after school on Friday. His first grade teacher was correcting math problems and said, “T7 is really good in math. He got all these problems right.” I told her we did a lot of mental math and he likes percentages.
She replied, “Ah. Yes, he kept asking me what percentage done we were each day. Obviously he’s heard you talk about that. I’m not sure he understands it, though.”
Today T7 and I were talking about time on the computer, and so I asked him, “If you had an hour to play games, and were 50% done, how much time would you have left?”
“30 minutes,” he replied without hesitating.
“What if I have you 4 sandwiches for lunch and you ate 75%? How many would you have left?”
“One.”
We high-fived. He’s a smart cookie, when it comes to mental math.
That’s excellent for a second grader! Go T7! You have every right to be proud. :o)
OK you know he understands percentages and T7 knows what he knows, but why did the teacher discount it? With two questions she could have determined his understanding and started tailoring math to his level. Color me cynical after 10 years in the public schools for any kid that falls outside the bell curve.
LOL! My son used to calculate how much change was due back to him while standing in a check-out line. He loved being able to tell the clerks exactly what change to give him. Later on, in a college math class, he did the problems mentally and announced the answers — faster than the other students could punch the numbers into their calculators. Sounds like your guy is cut from the same cloth!