Teaching Turtles

I am giggling as I type this, for Todd is busy teaching Pistachio.

But first, let me backtrack.
A few months ago I'd started to teach Todd how to add-- we had one of those little workbooks and I used pennies to help Todd add small sums. He soon got the hang of it, and enjoyed it. At first it was 2+3, 4+2, no big deal... but having to keep lots of pennies gets cumbersome. So, several weeks ago I bought some beads-- 10 rows of 10 colorful beads each. I think 100 beads is plenty to keep Todd occupied until he can do arithmetic without their aid :-)

Anyway, this past couple weeks I'd been teaching Todd not only sums under 10, but sums OVER 10-- like 6+7 and even 11+4... Todd quickly caught on to the concept of using multiple rows of beads.

Today I watched intently as Todd held Pistachio and told him to add "2+5". Through Todd, Pistachio used his fins and went through the exact same motions Todd always does when doing his addition problems: first counted out 2 beads, then 5 beads, then pushed them together and counted them, finally pronouncing at the end "Two plus five makes seven!" Clever turtle! ;-)

I commented on how Todd was teaching the turtle, and he explained further:

"The class is in there (pointing to the bedroom), but there is a man sleeping in there (Daddy's sick and in bed) so we have to do it out here. This (the living room, where we were) is outside the classroom!"