Thursday, June 13, 2013

Real-Life Word Problems

Monkey is still pretty resistant to any kind of formal math lessons.  If you just give him a straightforward math equation he has to really think about it, or else he just guesses.  Instead, I give him random word problems related to whatever we are doing throughout the day and it becomes a fun game for him.  I am constantly amazed by how quickly and effortlessly he fires back the answer.  He can answer things like "How much change will we get if this costs $12 and I give the cashier a $20 bill?" or "You have $7.00 but you need to have $13.00 to buy that.  How much more do you need to save?"

Another real life example from a couple days ago:

Me:  Okay, we are supposed to be there in 5 minutes.  But it takes 20 minutes to get there.  How late are we going to be?
Monkey (enthusiastically):  Oh!  15 minutes late!

Not only did he *know* the correct answer to 20 - 5, he first calculated the relationship between those numbers to form the correct equation in his mind in order to get the right answer, which is a higher order of thinking.

(BTW, I swear I really am working on trying to set a better example in the punctuality department...)

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