Math

I enjoy Parker's interest in math, and although I don't push him, I do try to help him explore that world as well as I can. The other day he was telling me how many rows and columns he could need to write up to 1000. This is all part of a recent multiplication thing he's got going on, so he was saying he could have 10 rows and 100 columns, or 20 columns and 50 rows, etc.

So I asked him whether he could write up to 1000 using the same number of columns and rows. This stumped him for a bit, and it stumped me for a moment as well, but it led to a nice conversation about squares and square roots. Parker has been working on squares for a while now, so it was a good time to talk about square roots.

I helped him understand the terms, how to talk about these concepts: two squared is four, and the square root of four is two, etc. I gave him the examples up to 16, and then quizzed him on the square roots of 25, 64 and 100, which he got without any trouble. I then showed him how to make these calculations on the scientific calculator, which he dug.

At that point we were ready to address the issue of counting up to a thousand using the same number of rows and columns, which led us to the square root of a thousand. The answer is 31.6227766, making it clear to him and to me that one can count up to 961 or 1024 using the same number of columns and rows, but not to 1000.

There will come a time soon when Parker's understanding of math far outstrips my own, so I am enjoying these little lessons while they last.