Off we went to the math tutor yesterday afternoon, armed with nothing more than pennies, Crispix, and comfortable knowledge that the Marianne, the math tutor, knows how to make math fun. The math tutor is for my older daughter, Sabine, who is almost twelve and studying algebra and interest rates. Sabine likes to daydream and skim important homework instructions, but if she has ADD, it is mild. My six-year-old, Ana, is the little firecracker, the one who spins like a mixer on high speed.
I’d made a brave plan to work with Ana on her math while Marianne worked with Sabine. I dumped all my change onto Marianne’s coffee table, and Ana, sensing what was coming, retreated to the rocking chair where she rocked as furiously as I allowed.
“Come on, Ana, help me get all the pennies together,” I wheedled, quickly pulling side all the nickels, dimes, and quarters. She helped for a moment and then spun away, saying she wanted to go outside. She’s smart enough to know that any activity involving sitting down and focusing in simply not for her. I had to grasp her firmly by the shoulders and offer to let her keep the pennies she counted before she would kneel down in front of the coffee table to play the penny game.
The game works by laying down two columns of ten pennies while counting them out one by one. I used a couple of paper towels on which I wrote out the numbers—two columns of ten and one column of five to make a quarter. Ana is supposed to pick up one penny at a time and lay it on its space while saying the number she is covering with the coin.
The penny game is supposed to help her learn to count by rote, understand the concept of measurable quantities, grasp the idea of tens and units, and give her practice using the pincer grasp to exercise her fingers. Most babies naturally pick up the pincer grasp when they start feeding themselves Cheerios, but my rising first grader is still honing her fine motor skills. She also routinely skips the number “14” when counting up to twenty.
Ana completed the penny game once, for which I rewarded her with a quarter. She struggled with the concept that all the pennies were the equivalent of one quarter, but I finally convinced her. After one more round, and a second quarter, I gave up on getting her to count the Crispix and took her out for a walk.
We discussed the strange penny with the head of a woman instead of the head of man and a leaf instead of a building. Upon examination, we discovered that the man was Abraham Lincoln. I carefully read the words on the other penny “Elizabeth II” and wondered aloud whom Elizabeth II was. Ana told me she was a queen, so I asked, “Is she Queen of Genovia?”
“No,” Ana replied.
“Is she the Queen of France?”
“Nooo.”
“Is she the Queen of England?”
“Yes!”
So I squeezed in a social studies lesson, too. While on the walk, we read the stop sign, finger spelled the word stop, and even found a sewer cover with the word “storm” on it. We peeked at each other from opposite ends of the drain. It was a rare moment of calm parenthood that I rarely experience with my youngest daughter. Perhaps being outside in the sunshine is a valuable as counting pennies.
