Math Skills

This morning Andy was posing algebraic math questions to Frankie. He first asked if Frankie could solve the problem: n+n = n*n. Frankie quickly answered n = 2 or n = 0. Then Andy asked about n + m = n * m. We all started thinking about it, wondering if there was a solution to this one. After a couple minutes, Andy started to say that he needed a pencil to solve this one and Frankie chirped up, “n = 3 and m = 1 1/2”.

A couple days ago we were watching Polar Express and a character mentioned the number 150.4. A few minutes later, Frankie said 150.4 divided by 4 equals 37.6. He did this all in his head. He has a clear understanding of fractions, decimal places, percentages, and algebraic notation.

This got me thinking about the math program at his elementarty school. Reading and spelling are broken into levels but math is the same for all.  The arithmetic that I've seen him doing so far in second grade is still addition and subtraction of 1 and 2 digit numbers.