Who Needs an Abacus When You Got Jenga!

I'm not exactly sure when Ethan decided that he loves Math (clearly not MY strong suite), but it's amazing, at 4, how strong his arithmetic skills are. It's about the only subject he's almost always interested in.

Last night, after working with him on writing his full name, I promised I would let him play on "dot com disney" (he likes to play the games on playhousedisney.com) if he would practice writing his numbers. Sure enough, by the time he got to 4, he had already lost interest despite the "reward". He eventually finished it and I thought he would be done with lessons for the rest of the night when Mike strolled in with a challenge.

He wrote this on Ethan's paper:

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 =

5 + 6 =

7 + 5 =


"I will give you 5 extra minutes on the computer for every problem you solve," he said.

Ethan was surely up for the challenge. And although he could do the math with his fingers, I figured it'd be more fun for him to use the jenga blocks as a manipulative. This fancy term, manipulative, simply means using items with your child as visual aids of the mathematic concepts you are trying to teach.

Too easy....... :)


I ♥ seeing him feel accomplished!