[jimmytucson]

Because my young kids always got suspicious when I tried to “teach” them something, I found a way to weave it into real life. One kid would ask me for 7 Froot Loops, so I’d give them 4 and ask them how many I still owe them. Or we’d be out on a drive and I’d ask them if trees are alive. Then I would be adversarial with them: “if they’re alive, why don’t they move?” “What do they eat?” The adversarial thing works really well, depending on their personality. I’d get them to do all kinds of math stuff this way.

If you’re looking for a more structured approach, I counted marbles on a carpet with one kid for a while, every night. They put up with it but pretty much hated it. I could tell the learning wasn’t super deep. When I tried that with the second one, they pretty much rolled the marbles under the furniture.

What I’ve learned about kids is they are so different that a single approach may only be optimal for 1 in 5 of them (I made up that number). Which is why I wish I could home school them, because no teacher or school I’ve found can seem to customize their lesson plan enough.

[farmerstan]

I did something almost exactly the same when my kids were ~3. They picked up addition and subtraction really quickly by using their fingers and even understood negative numbers before the age of 4.

We home schooled during the pandemic and the amount they learned in one year was incredible. Tailoring the curriculum per kid was extremely effective but not sustainable so now they are back in a private school but they enjoy the social aspect much better.

[User23]

> Which is why I wish I could home school them, because no teacher or school I’ve found can seem to customize their lesson plan enough.

I believe this is largely why private tutoring can also produce exceptional results.

[raxxorraxor]

> so I’d give them 4 and ask them how many I still owe them

That works once and then they demand all the froot loops. They might not be able to do math but they are still criminals.

Jokes aside, sport is a usual goto if the kid is interested. Counting points or asking by how much the other teams is ahead.

[jasonladuke0311]

> They might not be able to do math but they are still criminals.

> Jokes aside

Where's the joke?