Addition in Daily Life

In the past half-year to a year, SpiderGirl has not made any particular advances in her adding and subtracting.  I have shown her a bit of grouping and borrowing.  Mostly, she has relied on the abacus for multi-digit addition and subtraction.  Since SpiderGirl has not seemed to find such computation easy, I figured that maybe she wasn't ready for this aspect of math and I didn't push it.

Why Multiplication Tables?

Although BatBoy has taken it upon himself to know exponents of 2 and SpiderGirl has been accumlating multiplication facts for some time, I can't imagine why anyone without foreknowledge of the power of memorized multiplication tables would bother sitting down to memorize 145 multiplication facts.  That's right:  the power of memorized multiplication tables.  Having multiplication facts in your head, retrievable at a moment's notice, is incredibly powerful, mathematically speaking.

BatBoy and Sum Dog

In general, I'm not a fan of video games for young kids.  It's not that I don't like games -- I do -- but when my husband and I were growing up in the 80's, the number and accessibility to games were far more limited compared to today.  Neither of us started playing until we were in our tweens.  Now, with my husband working at home as a video producer, in addition to being a game and gadget geek, we are simply surrounded by computers and other sources of electronic entertainment.


BatBoy, being very like his dad, loves games.  However, lately, I've realized that his love of video games partially stems from his love of games in general.  He loves board games, logic puzzles, Rubik's Cubes, jigsaw puzzles, sports games, pretend games -- all kinds of games.  In the virtual world, he doesn't have to worry about making a mess or encountering physical difficulties due to his age.  The rules are clear and there is always a virtual personage there to cheer him on.  He doesn't realize that the more time he spends on video games, the more he thinks about them.