[Reposted from Alexandra O Fradkin’s blog Musings of a Mathematical Mom]
Yesterday, I overheard a wonderful conversation between our Kindergarten teacher and the Kindergartners. The kids needed to line up to exit the classroom and the teacher told them to line up by age, oldest to youngest. Immediately, one of the kids (K1 from now on) had a question. “But how can we do it? I’m five, K2 is five, and K3 is 5, so that means we’re all the same age!”
Teacher: Are you all the exact same age?
K1: Yes.
Teacher: So you were all born on the exact same day?
K1: Noooo. (giggling from the other kids)
Teacher: Ah, so some of you were born before others. When are your birthdays?
K1: July.
K2: May.
K3: May.
Teacher: When in May?
K2: May 5.
K3: May 17.
Teacher: So who is older, who was born first?
K1: K2 is older.
Teacher: Why?
K1: Because she is taller!
Teacher: So taller people are always older than shorter ones?
All kids: Noooo.
Teacher: So in order to figure out who is older we need to determine what comes first, May 5 or May 17?
Silence.
Teacher: Well when you count, do you say 5 or 17 first?
K1: 17.
Teacher: So we count 1, 2, 3, 4, 17, and then five comes at some point later?
K1 (after much giggling): Noooo, it’s 1,2,3,4,5.
Teacher: So who’s older?
All kids: K2!
After that conversation it still took them a moment to get into the correct order, but they did it, and off they went! I love hearing kids of this age group reason because they are, for the most part, still not afraid of being wrong and they will say whatever comes to mind. This allows you to analyze how they think and is just plain lots of fun.
De Morgan Gazette 