A fellow blogger recommended Greg Tang's series of living math books that target dynamic thinking. I got a copy of Math Appeal: Mind-Stretching Math Riddles (for free at Paperbackswap--if you sign up, my email address is tammyglaser798 at earthlink dot net). Pamela blew me away today with how quickly she figured out that she could count the peas in groups of eleven! While she has an eye for patterns, she cannot count a box of toothpicks spilled onto the floor a la Rainman. I love how quickly her mind works as you can see in the video.
Pamela surprised me greatly today. She handed me this postcard mailed to us to generate donations for victims of Hurricane Gustav. She said to me in a meaningful way, "It's the Gulf Coast."I was curious if she knew where the Gulf Coast was because it is not something I have explicitly taught her. I asked, "What states are on the Gulf Coast?"
She quickly answered, "Louisiana" (where many of our relatives live).
6 comments:
wow! wonderful. thanks for sharing. Sincerely, DianeG.
wow - soooo cool!
and it's cute when she's not sure if she should continue reading & quickly says "i mean..." while looking at u for a queue - my son does the "i mean..." a lot when he's not sure or thinks he's incorrect! ;0)
We just got a couple of the Tang books via scholastic...i love them. my mom even used them in the PS if you can believe it! she was a rebel though;) out of the box thinker
I love the way she made that connection! I am glad she's getting into the Greg Tang books; I think they're really cool.
I love the movie Rainman, but stereotypes like that really annoy me. Most people on the autism spectrum don't have these seemingly preternatural abilities -- LOL -- and I don't think those images in the media are helping any.
Are the Tang books actuallly curricula - or are they more a supplemental program to what you're doing? If the latter, which math program do you find works well for Pamela overall?
Lisa
Definitely supplemental, Lisa! Pamela can easily do the operations required, so the goal is for her in this book to see how there are different ways to count rows of things. Thus, it promotes flexible thinking, not rote counting.
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