Math is not my friend.
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...
...especially when they're up way early and can't help but tip over on the sofa and immediately be fallen upon by heat-seeking snuggle-hounds {Oscar is curled up in the crook of her knees}
So off we went to the library and indeed maxed out our cards....we actually had to put two things back because for some Grinchy reason, adult cards are only allowed to take out two things as opposed to the five allowed for kid cards. {insert raspberry here}. Alas, Sebastian was coughing and hacking and snortling all over the library computer - upon which we were getting some rather nervous glances from the other patrons - so we didn't stay long. I'm quite certain someone immediately swooped in and disinfected everything we'd touched......
Malcolm...
Here's what we're doing.....
Savannah working on the Sims game....she's building an empire and tearing it down....one computer-simulated character at a time.......learning some more reading words and some simple math while she's at it....
