I had to give Veronica some help with the ten’s place this weekend.

I don’t think the common core way of presenting the ten’s place works at all.

I asked her, “Veronica, you know about the ten’s place, right?”

I’d seen her homework. Ten’s place was all over.

Her reply “Mommy, that doens’t have anything to do with addition or subtraction. It’ s only lines of blocks.”

OH boy.

So, I went over how to carry the one, and then a couple days later, how to borrow.

She was Very Sure that all this was unecessary. She absolutely knew how to figure out 20-13.

Then she did. She got it right. and the next few problems I gave her.

She was sure I was an idiot and making her life unnecessarily hard.

So I gave her

22- 13

That she couldn’t  figure out. And she saw the power of borrowing the ten.

The concept was never the problem. The neccessity was.

I remembered arguing with my mom in a similar  way.

She and I are alike, quite a bit. I don’t think my mom had as much of a stubborness with teachers as I did.

But I can see exactly what she’s arguing against. I think I’ll need to make sure to double down on the extra lessons at home.

she likes math.she was shocked to learn that i use math at work.

I should see what she makes of binary.