Talking math with a word game [Product review]
Long ago, we were given the game "What's Gnu?" as a gift. What better time to dig it out than in the waning days of summer leading up to the return of school? So Tabitha (six years old) and I did just that a couple weeks back. Neither one of our children has been...
An evening ride on the A train
I was in New York City for a conference recently. I arrived at JFK airport on a Monday evening and took public transportation into the city. I observed the following scene. --- At about 8:30 p.m., a mother and her (roughly) 6-year old twin girls board the train and...
If it’s true for other language…
...it's probably true for number language too. University of Pennsylvania researchers have studied the quality of parents' speech to their toddlers, and its relationship to the children's vocabulary later on. "Quality" of speech was measured by how well an adult...
City names
We were driving home recently. Griffin was in the back seat reading his book about U.S. Presidents. Griffin (9 years old): Who was the capital of Wisconsin named for?Me: Is this a quiz or a question? This is an important distinction with Griffin. He has both in his...