Our Offsprings :)

Dearest Kavya,

In your Montessori school they have started teaching you “addition” and “subtraction” the Abacus way.  You are almost 5 now and I should say you have mastered it. But we came a long way to get here

When your teacher (Ms.Najiah, a pakistani teacher in your Primary level @ Pflugerville Montessori School, Texas) started this with you, she wanted me to help by making you practice it at home too. You call this stamp game in Montessori school and the Montessori toys includes stamps (in plastics) for units, tens, hundreds and thousands to use it for counting. To teach you at home, what do I do for those stamps?

Mummy wrote down lots of 1s, 10s, 100s and 1000s in paper and cut into small squares that we used as stamps. That’s how we practiced Abacus way of addition and subtraction at home. Many times you tested my patience in sorting and arranging these units. Then you have to do the math. Ufff!

You call addition as “adding together” and subtraction as “take away”. If I ask you to solve one problem in each, you will say…hmmm, I want to do only one. Always “take away” i.e. minus has been your preference. I had to bribe you with icepops (kuchi ice) or fruit roll-ups to get you do both

I had been a very strict teacher with you…rolling my eyes, screaming, pinching and kuttu too many times when you used to do it wrong. Sorry kanna, but it was all to make you learn.

Here are some samples again…

Dearest Kavya,

You started writing 1 to 100 when you’re almost 4 1/2 years old. You are in Pflugerville Montessori doing your Primary level at this time. You seem to have a liking for numbers, counting…in general math. But you prefer counting orally than writing. “Writing is too hard mummy” is what you say whenever I ask you to write. However, I am not letting you go without writing.

Here’s one sample of how you wrote 1 to 100. Look at your 5’s and 6’s. You are always confused as to which side would 5 face – right or left! Similarly with 6 too!!

I am sure you are going to laugh when you grow up to see this – how you learnt to write numbers.