One of the wonderful privileges of being a parent is that we get to train our children in so many ways. One of my ways to nuture my children is through talking to them about mathematics. Sadly, for many who have had bad experiences with mathematics, this idea of talking math with children can cause anxiety. This does not have to be the case when we see math as the flexible, usable, adaptable, enjoyable beauty that it is.
On Twitter there is a hashtag, #tmwyk or talking math with your kids. This hashtag was created by Christopher Danielson. Christopher is very active on Twitter and quite responsive to individuals who post with the #tmwyk hashtag. You can check out Christopher's website here.
Over the last year or so, I have posted a number of interactions with my oldest daughter to the #tmwyk hashtag.
Using the Chromecast to #tmwyk pic.twitter.com/9yGWvLc9hu
— Adam Paape (@Adapaa) March 21, 2015
My kiddo and I were playing, "Which one doesn't belong?" in this tweet. Christopher Danielson is responsible for the "Which one doesn't belong?" game.
Fun work with multiples of three based on this glass of milk. 5 year old loves it. #tmwyk pic.twitter.com/FszNjPMtZP
— Adam Paape (@Adapaa) November 2, 2014
Here we had a wonderful conversation about multiples that she started by noticing the threes.
This morning my daughter and I spent some time playing a card game. I found this card game here. The basic idea is that you lay down 7 cards and then the kiddo tries to find two cards that add up to 10.
The child continues to find pairs of 10s until there are no more pairs. When there are no more pairs to be made, the parent puts down seven more cards and the child tries to find pairs of 10s again.
In our first attempt at this game, my daughter was clearly excited. We had a really nice conversation about an Ace (1) plus 9. We discussed whether or not 1+9 was the same as 9 + 1. Talk about a great way to think about the commutative property of addition. My daughter said, "Yes Daddy, they are the same." I said, "Why are they the same?" At first she said, "Well, just because they are." But then she gave me a counterexample. "Dad, it isn't 9+2." I said, "That's really good kiddo. Thank you for your thought and thank you for making me think."
After a little while we put down 7 more cards. An interesting thing happened with this sequence. Take a look.
I asked her, "What do you notice." I was expecting that she would identify the patterns of the Aces and the 9s. However, she had a very different thought in mind. She told me, "Well Dad, these two are the only two that are black." I said, "Wow! You noticed something I didn't even see." She looked at me with a huge smile. She was so proud to have noticed something that Dad didn't see.
I love activities like this where there are many possibilities for different perspectives on the math. On this particular sequence of seven cards, I thought that she would just pick up all the Aces + 9 to get her 10s, but she didn't do that. She remembered that there was another 5 that was hidden under one of the 9s, so she worked to get an Ace plus 9 so that she could get to a 5 + 5 because, as she said, "I know 5 + 5 is 10." Wonderful, this is why we talk math with ours kids. They will show us things that we didn't even think about. Kids will create strategies that are all their own and it is one of our jobs to get them to justify their reasoning behind these wonderful, kid-created strategies and thoughts. So, let's keep the #tmwyk movement going - the payoff is huge!
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