Of Stomach Aches, Janitors Closets, and Ooblek: My Math Journey
We started our school year two weeks ago. Things were going great until one day I sold out in math with my second grader. Up until now, her math curriculum has been entirely hands-on with little paper and pencil. I decided to give a standard workbook a try. So, I flipped through the pages and saw "Skip Counting." Because heaven forbid you should use big, scary mathematical words, even if they are the most accurate. Anyway, on one page, students were meant to practice skip counting by 2s, 5s and 10s. It went like this. For the first set, you had about six faces in a row and underneath each face was a blank. Most of the blanks already had traceable numbers under the faces: 2, 4, 6, 8.... The directions: Count the eyes. I cringed and groaned aloud. I tried to give in and do the page with my daughter even though I knew it wasn't right. She...