something pleasant
Nov. 23rd, 2004 03:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
topazMorgan had homework last night. From time to time in first grade they're going to give him homework assignments, some of which are to be brought back to school and some of which are just to do at home. This one was a sheet of number and counting exercises, like "name any number larger than 17" or "count up to 21 from 7".
Interestingly, one of the first exercises was "count to 3 but start at 19", which seemed to me like one of the more advanced tasks on the list. It definitely freaked Morgan out, so I skipped it. He was also a little unsure about "count by nickels to 50 cents," so I introduced the concept of counting by fives. The rest of it he got with flying colors: he's great with counting and knows his numbers up to a hundred (though he gets a little hazy on whether fifty comes after forty, and seventy after sixty, and stuff like that).
My favorite part was where he was supposed to compare the number of stuffed animals and board games in the house. They provided a row of little boxes for each category, and then a space to write the total number of each. The idea obviously was that you should go through your collection of toys and mark an X for each one you found, then afterwards, count up all the Xes and write down the number you get. Morgan instead went upstairs, counted the number of animals he found, then came back down and wrote down the number in each box. Then the same with the board games. He found 40 stuffed animals and 70 board games, and we had to draw several extra rows of boxes for each category.
Makes me regret that this wasn't an assignment to bring back to school. I'd love to know what his teachers thought of that.
Interestingly, one of the first exercises was "count to 3 but start at 19", which seemed to me like one of the more advanced tasks on the list. It definitely freaked Morgan out, so I skipped it. He was also a little unsure about "count by nickels to 50 cents," so I introduced the concept of counting by fives. The rest of it he got with flying colors: he's great with counting and knows his numbers up to a hundred (though he gets a little hazy on whether fifty comes after forty, and seventy after sixty, and stuff like that).
My favorite part was where he was supposed to compare the number of stuffed animals and board games in the house. They provided a row of little boxes for each category, and then a space to write the total number of each. The idea obviously was that you should go through your collection of toys and mark an X for each one you found, then afterwards, count up all the Xes and write down the number you get. Morgan instead went upstairs, counted the number of animals he found, then came back down and wrote down the number in each box. Then the same with the board games. He found 40 stuffed animals and 70 board games, and we had to draw several extra rows of boxes for each category.
Makes me regret that this wasn't an assignment to bring back to school. I'd love to know what his teachers thought of that.
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-23 01:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-23 01:36 pm (UTC)I guess we should do a games night party some day!
no subject
Date: 2004-11-23 02:43 pm (UTC)Morgan's homework is occasional? About how long does it take to do it? Edward gets homework every week and I would say we're spending 3 hours, sometimes 4, per week on the homework. Chad and I really struggle with feeling like it's excessive.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-23 06:05 pm (UTC)I was kind of concerned the first time I heard that first-graders were going to be getting homework. I couldn't really imagine that homework would be a useful or productive concept until at least 3rd or 4th grade, if not later. But if this is any indication they seem to be phasing it in at a decent pace. (And sending homework home that's not meant to be brought back helps make it lower-stress, I think.)
no subject
Date: 2004-11-23 07:12 pm (UTC)1. The act of counting just means getting to a number adequately, like filling a bucket and letting some slop off. Thus you are already done -- 19 satisfies 3 somehow.
2. You go backwards to get to three, defining counting as moving in integer steps in any direction (but by this definition you could go 19, 18, 19, 20, 21, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 17, 16, etc.).
3. Go forward and somehow get to three, either by using modular arithmetic, like a clock, or just redefining 3.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-24 07:32 am (UTC)#2 sounds particularly like Morgan. When he was somewhere around three and a half he had this obsession with arranging all his toy cars in a long, extremely straight line. He would bring us to see the lines he made and count the cars: "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen..."
(repeat about fifty-eight times)
"...fourteen, fourteen, seventeen, TWENTY!"