Search This Blog

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Math and self-esteem

Today we worked on a few different math concepts.  Carolyn took a great nap and was ready to go when she woke up.  We pulled out her folder and she was excited to see the math worksheets I printed earlier today.  We started with a counting sheet (1-20).  She filled in the numbers that were missing from the boxes.  We're still working on how to write some of the numbers, so after she told me what was next I did some dash marks for her to trace.  Then she did a color by number.  She needs to work on coloring in shorter strokes, but I also think we need to sharpen her crayons a little.  It can be hard to make small marks with dull crayons.  She loved her ice cream cone picture when she was done though.   Then we did a patterns sheet.  There were 3 lines with shapes and she had to fill in what came next.  She did awesome, just asked for help drawing a triangle.  So after she drew one line, I dashed the two others for her to trace.  My little perfectionist.  Then she did another color by number, with smaller spaces.  A little trouble staying in the lines, but she's 4.  Next we did some work on reading a clock.  I know this can be a very hard skill.  But she was able to determine the hour and whether it was on the hour of half hour with slight prompting.  She's been interested in clocks a bit lately, so I thought this was a great opportunity.  She seemed to enjoy it. I wrote the numbers in for her since I wanted her to be able to focus on the clock aspect.  We finished up with working on addition.  She is starting to memorize some of the problems, or she's super fast at counting up the objects.  Not sure which, but 1+2=3 and 2+2=4 came out super fast.  She had to count for 3+4=7 and 1+3=4.  But she was liking these as well.  Such a smart little girl! 

We spend a lot of time telling our kids how great they are and encouraging them whenever they do something well.  We give out a lot of hi-fives and of course tons of hugs.  Our kids also often hear from strangers about how well behaved they are.  They hear this just yesterday from both of the guys here to give moving estimates.  It is nice for them to hear this affirmation from strangers, since we know it's genuine.  But it is great to see when the kids affirm we are building up their self esteem.  I was lucky enough to have such an experience today with Carolyn.  As we were doing the worksheet she noticed the name line at the top.  Here's the conversation that took place:

C:  Is that the name line?
Me:  Yes, but since we're at home you don't have to fill it out.  When you go to school you'll need to.
C: Why?
Me:  So everyone can know that it's your work.
C:  But won't they know just because it's awesome?
Me:  (Smiling)  All the kids will do awesome work, so you need to identify it was yours.
C:  But they'll know it's mine because it will be more awesome.
Me:  (Stifling a giggle at the cuteness)  Just in case they don't, you'll need to write your name.

Does she really think she's better than everyone else?  I don't think so.  But it's great to see that she thinks she does awesome work and that she believes her work is special because she does it.  She's a bit of a perfectionist so I battle with trying to remind her that making mistakes is okay.  I'll work on getting her comfortable academically this year so that she can adapt to a school environment where the teacher won't give her dashed lines for new letters/numbers.  And hopefully with experiencing more new things at home she'll realize it's okay to make mistakes.  For now, it's great to see how excited she gets about doing her "schoolwork" and to see her learning.

No comments:

Post a Comment