The kid (an asynchronous 12) has been running a school for her stuffed kitties the past few days. Today she started with a math lesson. I was made aware of this fact when she came running to announce: “Mama! I have a new math theory!”
Her: If you go in the pattern of even numbers or counting by twos, if you try to divide each number in half you’ll get odd, even, odd, even…like two of odd , two of even.
Me: Oh, so for example, two can be divided in half into 1 and 1…
Her: And then 4 can be divided in half into 2 and 2 which can be divided into fourths which is 1 and 1 and…it just goes in a kind of infinity.
The above is the conversation we had after she had rushed through her first explanation. I’m glad for the voice recorder because it helps me capture AND process what she’s saying. In the first explanation she did mention something about fractions not counting in the pattern, but in the recorded conversation she starts using fractional language…
Also, a meta observation of how #tmwyk (“talking math with your kids”) has developed for us: I’ve noticed that, over time, asking her to record her thoughts on my phone has informally helped her refine her thinking and definitely affirmed for her that I am interested in hearing any mathematical thinking she’d like to share. Today is a perfect example.
Math in Unexpected Spaces 