This past weekend we had a visit from several people in our family including our granddaughter Jillian. At one point during the weekend, Jillian was scribbling intently on the dining room table which had been converted to a worktable for the grandkids. As Jillian was working so dilligently, I asked what she was doing. "Getting ready for 1st grade," she said and showed me what she called her "homework". It appears she is going right from the obtaining problem solutions to making up the problems.
After writing down each problem, Jill would then "check it" with a genuine Lakeshore calculator whose colors certainly seemed to indicate it was for 1st graders use. On some of her later "homework" of the day, Jillian would write out the whole equation such as "4 x 123 = 492" and she would say the numbers as she wrote them. It was "one-two-three" it was "one hundred twenty three". This was just amazing.
As some of you know, my love for math began about the same time as Jillian's apparently has been. Bernell and Woody would let me work on their homework when they were in 3rd and 5th grade. But of course I didn't have a calculator back then. And it started me on a long trajectory of always being 2 or 3 years ahead of my age group in math class. I was studying 9th grade algebra in the sixth grade and university level calculus during my senior year. I hope that Jillian gets all the encouragement she can stand to keep "doing her homework" in math.
After writing down each problem, Jill would then "check it" with a genuine Lakeshore calculator whose colors certainly seemed to indicate it was for 1st graders use. On some of her later "homework" of the day, Jillian would write out the whole equation such as "4 x 123 = 492" and she would say the numbers as she wrote them. It was "one-two-three" it was "one hundred twenty three". This was just amazing.
As some of you know, my love for math began about the same time as Jillian's apparently has been. Bernell and Woody would let me work on their homework when they were in 3rd and 5th grade. But of course I didn't have a calculator back then. And it started me on a long trajectory of always being 2 or 3 years ahead of my age group in math class. I was studying 9th grade algebra in the sixth grade and university level calculus during my senior year. I hope that Jillian gets all the encouragement she can stand to keep "doing her homework" in math.
How kind of your older brothers to let you work on their homework. That's a part of the story I hadn't heard before, but it certainly fits with the rest.
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