For the Love of Numbers

Emma loves numbers. She loves letters as well, but lately she has been really interested in numbers. When in the car we sometimes play the number game.

"Mama, if I have 5 horses and you have 6 horses, and I give you 2 of my horses, how many horses do you have?"

Most of our number games revolve around horses in some way.

Sometimes she likes to throw multiplication at me (even though she has no idea what that is).

'Mama, if I have 4 piles of rocks and each pile has 4 rocks, how many rocks do I have?"

The first time she surprised me with one of those we were at wally world and I was a bit taken aback. Especially because it was during the winter which means she was either still 4yo or had just turned 5. I showed her how to count 4 times on 4 of her fingers. A bit primitive, but it works well when you are not really prepared for those types of questions. She still uses that method, but she is pretty quick with it.

This was weekend I was participating in the local craft fair, so I was gone most of the weekend. One night Jared showed me this bright green paper that Emma had used to do math. On her own. With very little help. She did ask Jared how to make the plus and equals sign, but did the rest on her own.

2+2=4, 3+1=4, 1+1+1+1=4

4+2=6, 2+2+2=6, 3+3=6

Yes, all of her numbers are backwards. I now know I need to put up a little poster or something with all the numbers on it, but her math was all correct. We also explained to her the other ways, through addition, that she can make 6 and 4. She is really proud of her work, and so are we.