We have a book that teaches the girls addition. It has sticks of different lengths and you can count up the squares that make up each stick. If you line up, for instance, the 2-stick and the 3-stick, it will match the 5-stick. Tonight, the kids seemed to have a break-through on what this means for addition.
Later, I showed Miranda how this also corresponds to adding on one’s fingers. Here’s a video of her adding.
[If you can’t see the Flash player above, you can download the video in MP4 format appropriate for an iPod: MP4 (1.2MB).]
It takes her a little bit of time to configure her fingers correctly, but she gets it.
Wow! We are so impressed at how well they can count! Yay! She has such a big smile at the end.