I have a deep psychological scar about math that I've traced back to an incident in my early school years involving a recitation of my times tables. *shudder*. Oh, I get by...I even did reasonably well in university-level calculus (thanks to a great professor), but in general, math makes me queasy.
Sadly, however, it's one of those necessary skills....
Early last week Savannah expressed an interest in earning some extra coin (she's saving up to buy a horse, btw) so an opportunity to start doing some basic math arose. So what's a math-o-phobe to do? Why, find some computer software, of course! {in my defense, it is her preferred method for doing new things -- it's all about being able to puzzle it out on her own} And from her experience playing Fairy-o-poly, I figured she'd grasp it quite easily when put into a *real* context, rather than faffing about with abstracts.
So now she's buying scooter accessories and making change in a virtual store where the shopkeeper is a rather obnoxious little mouse with a nerve-jarring Frosted-Lucky-Charms Irish brogue. And when she got frustrated with the horrible rodent, she went off to make pizzas and has grasped fractions with amazing alacrity...amazing only because it took me until adulthood and I was riding fast horses in a circle to truly grasp fractions...
Malcolm...And one of the best parts about this kind of learning, is that you get much cuddlier seat-mates than you'd find at conventional school...
Bless her... Such a much less painful way of learning....
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