Jonathan The Smarty Pants

All the conversations posts I've linked up with Amanda (from Knock on Wood) have been about Jonathan. Why? Because he is a character. Unique some might say. He is very expressive and playful so he tends to be my favorite person to talk about. 

Anyone with school-age kids knows that most states (I think it's 45) are adopting Common Core as their math instruction methods. This has been an issue here because it is quite different from what we all grew up with and so the change is difficult as parents/aunts/etc. 

The concept is using base-10. Something that I did to some extent (And still do). 

One morning last week I was helping Jonathan with some of his math homework in which he had to write out fact families (ie: 2+1=3, 1+2=3, 3-2=1, 3-1=2). I had helped him with the first two problems and then for the third I got distracted. When I looked back he had already done it. 

The fact family was 6, 8 and 14 but there were 2 other numbers so he had to pick which 3 were part of the family. 

Me: How'd you do that so fast?

Jonathan: Easy! 6 + 4 = 10, so 6 + 8 equals 14. 

That showed me that this math could really work and the problem is more so us as adults trying to help them do it the way they are being taught now. And to be honest I would have probably done it in a similar way (maybe more like 8+2=10 and the 14). 

I know it's blurry, but look how much fun he is having! 

I guess this isn't much as far as conversations go, but I was just so proud of him I wanted to make sure I shared it! 

I wanted to participate in Ember Grey's Grateful Heart Monday today. I am so very grateful to have Jonathan and Nikki around. I know my life would be a lot different if they didn't live near me. It definitely would be very boring. They keep me on my toes and I'm so happy to be around them on an almost daily basis.