Skip to main content

Soren Figures out Math

Since Soren taught himself to read, I have been focusing a lot of my homeschooling research and pondering on math.  I have lots of good ideas (some of them directly contradictory) but still no firm plan.  I figured that since I want to hold off on formal instruction until first grade (still a year away), I had plenty of time to decide.

But then Soren went ahead and figured out a lot of it on his own.  Here are some of the things he has figured out:

Counting

777,199 + 1 = 777,200
"After seven-hundred-seventy-seven thousand, one-hundred-and ninety-nine comes seven-hundred-seventy-seven thousand, two hundred."

999,999,999 + 1 = 1,000,000,000
"What number comes after nine-hundred-ninety-nine million, nine-hundred-ninety-nine thousand, nine-hundred-ninety-nine?  It has nine zeros."


59 + 1 = 60
"Why does 9:00 come after 8:59 instead of 8:99?"

Basic Arithmetic

5 x 5 + 5 x 10 = 75
"Five nickels and five dimes is seventy-five cents."

9 x 10 + 1 x 10 = 100
"Nine times ten plus one times ten is one hundred."

5 + x = 8
"What makes 8 with a 5?"

Roman Numerals

3 = III
"Let's play Megaman I I I."

5 = V
"I am V years old."

12 = XII
"We are on chapter X I I, Inside Information."

24 = XXIV
"I want to take Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist volume X X I V."

(Yes, he really does talk like this sometimes.  It is hard to understand because I don't think in Roman numerals!)

Patterns

10^3 = 1000
"1 dollar is 100 pennies.  10 dollars is 1000 pennies."

f(x) = x + 2007
"In the 2012th year I had my fifth birthday.  In the 2011th year I had my fourth birthday.  In the 2010th year I had my third birthday.  In the year 2009 I had my second birthday.  In the year 2008 I had my first birthday.  In the year 2007 I came out of your belly!"

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Our Potty Training Journey

February 2010 GOAL:  My initial goal was to introduce Soren to the toilet and make it a fun place to sit.  I have to admit that I also hoped that we would have some fortunate "accidents" that would lead to potty training success. STRATEGY:  My plan was to sit Soren on the toilet once a day and read him a couple of stories.  If he peed, I was planning to give him a candy. THE BAD NEWS:  The candy totally backfired.  The one time that he peed on the toilet, I gave him a candy and he had a full-on tantrum begging for more.  If I ever told him "When you pee on the potty, you can have a candy", he would begin screaming for the treat and be unable to focus on the toilet training. THE GOOD NEWS:  Soren was not afraid of sitting on the big toilet.  He actually really enjoyed it (when I was reading stories and not pimping rewards) and started asking to sit there any time his butt was bare. J June 2010 GOAL:  My goal was to potty train S...

What Works for Us: Room Time

I've decided to do a new series of posts on how I make parenting work for us. Every parent does it differently--which is great!--but I have a hard time keeping my discoveries to myself. The things I do may not work for anyone else but I want to record them and remember them. Hopefully, it will also help me vent my soap-box-y-ness so that I'm not always imposing my ideas on other people. That will be what "What-Works-for-Us Posts" are about. One of the things that we have always done, but has made a HUGE difference in the move from one to two children, is Room Time . When Soren was 6 months old, I started having him play alone (in a safe place) every day for a few minutes. At first it was only five minutes in the port-a-crib but we quickly worked up to fifteen, then thirty. At that time, I used those precious minutes to do housework or relax on the couch. When I was pregnant with Carl, Soren would play alone for about an hour in his room and I would usually tak...

February 10 - 16

* I thoroughly enjoyed reading Skyward. * Soren beat Megaman 1 without dying. * Carl was swamped with art homework.  His teacher assigned him 5 mini-paintings, 30 gradients, and 1 shading. * Sven finished reading the Frog and Toad  treasury. * Leif talked a lot about wanting to make a friend. * Richard got to listen to lots and lots of read-a-louds.