Last night Clara was working on her homework, part of which involved math problems — simple addition. (Math homework! In kindergarten! But that’s another post.) 2+2, 2+3, 6+0, etc. Karen set her up with a handful of clementines on the table and her homework folder. For 2+3, Clara put two clementines on one side of the folder, and three on the other. Then she “smooshed them together” and counted the total, which she wrote down on the homework sheet. Once she got the hang of it she was pretty self sufficient, although she needed some help re-locating each sum on the sheet after doing the clementines, since the sheet had about 20 different problems. Towards the end, she had a problem, 2+0, and wrote the correct answer without using the clementines. How did you figure out the right answer, Clara? “I did it in my head!” She proceeded to add a couple more sums the same way, but she checked her answers with the clementines this time.
Clara, after dinner: “Mommy, can I do some more homework now?”
