My Little Mathematician

On Friday, Ethan came home from school with a bag full of blocks. He got these out of the treasure box in the class for being one of the quietest in the class that day and was so excited. When I got a good look at the "blocks" he had in his bag, I was was as excited as he was about them. These weren't just ordinary blocks, you see. These were Base Ten Blocks. These are the exact same blocks that were used as lessons to teach addition and subtraction to the children back at the Montessori school that I used to work at many many years ago. Knowing how much Ethan likes math, and knowing how easily he picks up math, and knowing how his teacher has already introduced the kids to the concepts of ones place, and tens place, and hundreds place, by way of "bundles", I just KNEW Ethan and Emily would love doing some math with these Base Ten Blocks.

I spent a few minutes with them comparing the cubes and rods with the straws and bundles they have at school that way they would understand that the value is the same. Once they got that down, then they were ready to go. Then I showed them how to create a math problem on the ground by using the cubes. We started out with a very simple problem like 3+5, so they could see the concept how the cubes work. After that, we created some harder problems using the tens place. They really liked doing that. My little math genius that Ethan is, though, would just blurt out the answer without taking the time to work out the problem. I had to make him work it out anyway by figuring out the ones place first and then doing the tens place. Emily's face lit up brighter than the sun when she got it and understood it all and she was ready for me to give her a whole entire page of double digit math. Ethan told me he wanted to move on to hundreds and so we did. It was nothing to him. I kept all of the problems simple enough so he didn't have to carry anything over. I figured that would be a lesson for another day. I am so very proud of my Kindergartners and all that they have learned this year. I can't even imagine what next year will bring.