Maths legs

Springy and I have been doing lots of conversational learning over the past few days. One of the things we discussed is how we're related to chimpanzees and orang utans (she did the asking). It started with "Mummy, did I used to be an orang utan?". It's not easy explaining evolutionary theory to a 7-year old but I think I answered her question without getting too technical and too over her head (and mine). I asked her about rats and mice - are they similar but not exactly the same? She responded in the affirmative and then we talked about whether she looks exactly like grandpa and grandma or her very tall uncle - no. We talked about going back and back and how if lots of tall people got married and had children they would more likely have tall ones and so on. She grasped it and understood that somewhere in the distant past, there were some creatures that were related to us and also related to chimpanzees but were not exactly like us.



My mother upset me today because she did her view on home education having asked what we did today. She really is unable to think outside her little box on school-based learning and thinks Springy should be in a school in order to have a "normal education". I then got told how when we were visiting, she had noticed that Springy is not able to read properly! I was then told how another child she knows reads "yellow books" at school - naturally my mother was not able to name the particular reading scheme which might have put it into context. Springy reads, fluently, and best of all enjoys reading. We still do story time together and at the moment this is Enid Blyton's The Wishing Wand.



We did some maths later this evening. We were playing with some of her toy animals and I just started to ask about their legs. It was really good fun asking Springy questions like "If you have 4 cats how many legs all together?" and "If there is a guineapig and a spider and then you stand near them, how many legs all together?". She looks up as she's working it all out - we did mental arithmetic in division, multiplication, subtraction and addition. She's still getting a few answers wrong but it doesn't matter and what's even better is she doesn't want me to stop asking her more questions because she likes doing problem solving and we have a giggle thinking of all the creatures going to and fro.