Proud Papi

There have been two occasions recently when I’ve been proud of Danielle. I try to avoid the overly proud parent blogs, but what the hell.

The school she goes to publishes these "math challenges" every two weeks. One is geared for K-3 and the other for 4-6. I’m a math geek so she’s been doing the easier ones for that last year and a half (she’s now in first grade).

The last one had story problems that introduced the concept of combinations. Say you have six markers and you have to do a picture using only two colors. How many combinations can you do?

Obviously there’s a formula for that, but in first grade we’re working on addition and subtraction. So this is more about logical thinking and being organized. So I suggest to Danielle that first she take the first color and count the possible combinations. She sees that it’s five. Then I say, "ok, now take the second color and see how many combinations you’ll have. Remember that you’ve already combined with the first color".

Her response was, "well, I just had five, so now it’s going to be four then three then two then one". Seeing patterns and concepts is the key to math, and I love math, so I pretty much did back flips.

Then tonight we were reading a wonderful book, The Apple Pip Princess. The basic story is a kingdom where the queen died and the happiness and prosperity died with her. The earth became barren, etc. There are three daughters. Before the queen died she let each daughter pick a possession to keep.

The oldest picked some fancy shoes that made her tall and important. The middle child picked a beautiful mirror so she could see herself and how beautiful she was. And the youngest picked a box of stuff her mother had collected so she could remember her mother. Seven things:

1. A tiny apple pip
2. A scattering of raindrops
3. A splash of sunlight
4. A fragment of rainbow
5. A starbird’s feather
6. A spider’s dewy web
7. A burst of nightingale song

Time passes and as the father the king is getting old he decides that he needs to decide which daughter will rule the kingdom when he dies. So he sets a task where each of his daughters has a week to do something to make her mark, and he will judge them at the end of the week to decide.

The first daughter decides to build a tall tower so people will be impressed by how important she is. So she commands everyone to bring her wood to build this tower.

The second daughter is not so original, so she decides to build a tall tower out of shiny metal so people will remember how beautiful she is. So she commands everyone to bring her metal to build this tower.

The youngest gets the wonderful idea to use her mother’s gifts. She plants the apple pip, uses the scattering of raindrops, gets more seeds from people, keeps planting and using the rest of the gifts (one each day) and makes the kingdom blossom again. You can figure out who wins the test.

We’ve read this a few times now, and tonight as I’m reading, Danielle says, "I know why Serenity (youngest daughter) wins the contest". And I say "because she has the smartest idea?". And Danielle says, "well yes, but also because she’s the only daughter who actually works".

Double, triple, quadruple back flips…