A Thirst for Knowledge

So......I'm kind of wigging out right now......

Last week, I bought addition and subtraction flash cards in order to start teaching these to Ethan. Yes, I realize that Ethan is only 3 years old, but he is already counting to 100.....even doing it by fives and tens. He is flying through any of the preschool math workbook that we have, and lately he has been wanting to do more & more math. So....I bought these flash cards.

Ethan adding manipulatives....and loving it!

Well, the teacher in me gets out all of my teaching stuff......the specific addition flash cards (the easiest ones....the plus ones) and my manipulatives (tangible items for Ethan to count....I used my tangram shape pieces.) I was so excited! And so is Ethan. As I'm getting stuff out & ready, he is grabbing for things & moving things....he was ready to play!

Then we begin. I show him the first flash card.....1+1=__. I say the words, "One plus one equals".....

I haven't even begun to do anything else....to show him the concept of adding, to use my shape pieces to demonstrate adding, NOTHING......and this child says, "TWO". ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!? After I was able to recover from shock, I moved on to the next card....1+2=__......he knew that one too. He knew all of them, and they went up to 1+12=__. WHERE DID HE LEARN THEM?????

I immediately emailed his preschool teacher. She still hasn't gotten back to me, so I'm anxious to hear from her. He may have learned these math facts at preschool. But this is EXACTLY what happened when I decided to start working with him on his letters.....he already knew most of them! I can remember being at my sister's house, and she pulls out a board game to play with Ethan. He was about 22 months old....just shy of being 2 years. She thought he would like to play it because it was all about letters, and we knew how much he loved letters. I told her, though, that we had only been working with uppercase letters, and the board game was lowercase letters....so he wouldn't know them. UM......HE KNEW ALL OF THEM!?!? How this child soaks up academia is UNBELIEVABLE! I had no idea that he knew his lowercase letters, but he got all of them right when my sister asked him what the letters were......unreal.

So, now I'm wondering where he learned his addition facts?! Probably school, I'm guessing, but I'm still blown away! Well, curiosity set in, so I moved on to the plus twos....to see if he knew those. He didn't...so I was able to use my math manipulatives & demonstrate adding....and he was totally getting it....and squealing with joy over this "game"......he LOVED it. He kept asking for more & more.....we probably played for about 30 minutes. Then, for lack of more flashcards, I got out another math workbook, and he was absorbed. He didn't want to write the answers, so that was my job, but he often read the directions & was so giddy doing math worksheets. Then, once we finished the math section, I scrambled again to find something...so we played one of his favorite board games BINGO BEARS. Everyone has a bingo-type card, and you spin a spinner. This spinner will tell you either a color, number or size bear to pick from the pile. We play the first one to fill their card is the winner. After he played this game with every bingo card, he was finally ready to play cars....without me. This session was 1.5 hours.

I am amazed at how my child's brain is super thirsty for knowledge. My husband and I are reminded of that movie SHORT CIRCUIT where the robot says, "Input, more input".......that's similar to Ethan. He loves to learn!

I tried to take a few videos, but it was difficult with my limitation of only having 2 hands.....so....here is what little I was able to get.....

 

*****UPDATE!!***** I spoke with Ethan's teachers today, and they told me that they haven't done addition facts with the 3 year olds. They HAVE been working on greatest vs. least, and other math concepts, but not addition facts. I am truly amazed at what Ethan absorbs....what a kid!