Homework

Calli was out playing the other day with her friends (after they were done with their homework, of course) and she came in after awhile, saying they had to go eat dinner and would it be okay if we pulled out her binder full of "homework"? (Homework is a 3-inch binder stuffed with things I've printed off and math sheets in page protectors that she does with a dry-erase markers.) I'd been meaning to add a few more pages to it so I said sure and we sprawled out on the living room floor with all this stuff around us.

After just a few minutes, one of her friends comes knocking on the door wanting to play again. I told Calli that it's no big deal - she could do whatever she wanted. Rather than go play, she asked her friend in and asked her if she wanted to do homework with her! LOL! The other girl was intrigued with what we were doing so she sat down and Calli shoved the binder toward her and flipped through a few pages.

The page she stopped at was one with pictures on it with a blank space to write the quantity. Calli started counting, but her friend grabbed the marker and says, "You don't have to count them! It tells you what number to write!" (She was correct - next to the blank is the written word that goes with the number, but Calli doesn't read yet.) So the girl zips down the page filling in the numbers.

Then they come to a page of math equations that also have illustrations. (As in, there were 5 birds, 2 flew away, leaving 3 sitting in the tree.) The little girl was taken aback a bit. Actually SEEING the numbers with a purpose attached to them made her slow down and actually think. (She could do plain 5-2=? equations just fine, though.) Calli, however, doesn't really do number equations yet, but with the pictures there she can say the equation and give the answer without skipping a beat because it MEANS something to her. (Plus she can "see" quantities - meaning she can look at a group of items and quickly sort them mentally into groups of 3 or 4 or 5, whichever makes most sense and combine those amounts to reach the total. She doesn't realize what she's doing yet and I haven't tried explaining it. I'm too fascinated with watching it happen. LOL!)

And then Calli went on to teach the girl how to do fractions, something Calli has picked up naturally, but this little girl hadn't yet been introduced to in school.

After they got bored with homework, they went out and played the Wii for a bit. THREE times during this, the girl had to ask what a word meant that Calli had said. (She has an impressive vocabulary for her age.)

All in all, I thought it was pretty neat. Calli is "behind" for her age in some aspects (like not reading yet), but ahead in others and it's interesting to see how she thinks differently than someone who's been in school. I love it!

She also doesn't seem to be intimidated by the fact that she doesn't read and her friends do. It's not a big deal to her. She embraces the differences and doesn't let it affect her friendships.

Then later that evening we sat down together at her request to do more homework stuff and she blew me away with suddenly being able to do double-digit subtraction. (But still struggles with addition - go figure.)