Counting

Tyson has made the comment a few times that he wishes he could just stop counting in his head.  I brushed it off for a while, but noticed that he was saying it more and more, so I asked what he meant by his statement.

"Well, I try and I try to stop, but I just turn around after thinking, 'stop counting, stop counting,' and start counting again.  I sometimes wish I could just stop."

So, I asked him to explain it to me, to show me.  Pointing at each knob on our desk drawers, he said, "Well, I look at things and count, '4.8.12.16.20,' things like that."

It felt like a jolt-- my seven year old is not just counting things, he's counting them in multiples.  So, I asked him to show me another, counting in a different multiple.  So he did.  My son has never been taught multiplication, but he sure knows it.

He did the same thing the other day with his reading minutes.  I expect my kids to read at least 20 minutes each day, so when he missed a few days of reading, I told him he needed to make it up.  In time faster than even I could come up with the answer, Tyson said, "Four days of 20 minutes equals 80 minutes, so I need to read for 1 hour and 20 minutes."  And I just stared at this child that understands so much.  He may not be as brilliant to others as he is to me, but this kid astounds me with his understanding of numbers.

I missed the sign up and testing for the Highly Capable (Hi-Cap) program in January, but not this year.  I fear that he'll surpass my understanding of math by the time he's in 4th grade!  Calculus?!  No problem, Mom!