My kids have so many toys that they often forget what toys
they have. I know…it’s definitely a #firstworldproblem and likely a symptom of spoiled-child-syndrome.
I’d like to blame grandparents and doting uncles and aunts for the plethora of
plastic that now peeks out of various IKEA storage bins, but that would
probably be unfair.
This last week, the bin of duplo Legos made a come-back. My
son started building the collection through birthday gifts and potty-training
treats five years ago, and it continued to grow under similar gifting-circumstances
for my daughter. In the last 9 months, though, the bin has sat largely unused
and unappreciated until one summer afternoon last week when it seemed to top
the charts of toy choices in our household. It’s steadily held the number 1 spot
now for 8 days and counting – a streak that is less likely to be broken by some
new sparkly-cool-gizmo-gadget now that Toy’R’Us has officially closed its doors.
There are two things about my daughter you need to know before I continue with this story:
- Some days I think that my daughter and I couldn’t be any more different. She’s interested in dolls and princesses, high heels and sparkles, and all things baby. Granted, she’s four. But even at four those weren’t my interests. In fact, if she had met the four-year-old-me in some strange time-travel scenario, I don’t think we would have played together for very long.
- She knows the word “frustrated” and regularly uses it to describe how she feels when faced with a challenge. I can often see the frustrationater coming when she faces repeated mistakes or conflict. She clenches both fists and shakes them at the ceiling saying “I’m soooo frustrated!” in the adorable four-year-old can’t-quite-enunciate cuteness that has me perpetually hiding my smiles and laughter while trying to ask, “How can I help?”
One afternoon, my daughter decided she was going to build a
hotel out of her Duplos. She’s obsessed with vacationing in
hotels and needed to make one for her Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck to
visit. After only a few minutes, the
frustionater appeared…
“I’m soooo frustrated!” she said, as she shook her fists.
“What can I do to help?” I asked
“See – the sides don’t work.”
“How could we get them work?”
“I don’t know…I’m sooo frustrated….” Again, the little fists.
Now I’ve long heard about the value of Legos in helping
children to make sense of mathematics. Some describe it as a chance to make sense of puzzles, others as an ability to make sense of patterns and symmetry. I’ve even seen my son learn about “doing”
and “undoing” (an important principle in building algebraic understanding) when
he uses the instruction books to build a particular set.
But I haven’t seen this kind of mathematical understanding
in my daughter. I know – she’s four. But even young children exhibit curiosity
and understanding around patterns, puzzles and symmetry.
It’s time for a major confession: As a female in a
STEM career I should be the last one to perpetuate gender-bias with
mathematics, and yet – I do. I’ve recently become aware of my own implicit
biases* towards my daughter and the opportunities I give her to play with math.
She’s happy talking about dolls and princesses, and high-heels and sparkles.
And because of my own implicit bias, I don’t ask the playful math question about the things she's interested in, but
instead tend to ask questions that are building her understanding of language
and literacy. “What does the princess say?” and “What story could they act out?”
are way more common than “How many shoes do we need for those dolls?” or “How
many more sparkles does Cinderella need to have the same as Moana?”
So in honor of Talk Math with Your Kid (check out #tmwyk), Summer of Math and trying
to confront my own bias, I’m trying to be more intentional about talking math with her. When the frustionater appeared while
building the hotel here’s what happened:
“Why do you think it keeps falling?”
“They’re not the same size” she said, pointing to the
pillars.
“How could we make them the same size?”
She huffed and started tearing it apart. In watching her try
and get the pillars the same size, I realized that she was guessing how many
more to add to each pillar by randomly selecting Duplos to add to the top of
the pillar. She wasn’t stopping to count or compare before sticking the landing
on and having it topple to one side.
“How many bricks are in each stack?”
She began counting one stack. 1..2..3..4..5..6..7…8..9
“Are there 9 in each of the stacks?”
She shrugged.
“How could we find out?”
She counted the next stack. 1..2..3..4..5…6..7
“Oh no. It doesn’t have 9. What should we do?”
“Add two more.”
I kid you not. The 4 year-old knew it off the top of her
head. I almost said, “Great!” or some other affirmation, when I remembered what
my elementary colleagues have taught me – how will I know if it’s accidental
guessing or because she actually knows that 7+2 = 9? So instead, I asked a question.
“Can you show me?”
She laid the stacks down next to each other, added two more
bricks, and showed me that the lined up to be the same size.
I think I can stop worrying now. She figured out the
strategy herself, and then used the laying of the stacks next to each other to
make all four the same size. No more frustionater, just a happy builder.
Everything isn’t resolved, but we played more with math, I
asked a question instead of making an assumption, and I’m working towards
confronting my unconscious biases. I know it’s not all tied together in a neat
bow, but here’s where I’m at –
This summer…
- How can we ask more questions?
- How can we confront our own biases?
- How can we play more with math?
Let me know what you’re thinking…leave a comment below or
chat with me about this on Twitter.
*I read an article about how parents ask counting/numerical/number questions to boys more often than girls, and tend to ask girls more questions about language…but now I can’t find the article to cite it. Anyone else read it? Let me know in the comments!
