I came downstairs this morning to change Daniel’s diaper and found a box of cereal, a gallon of milk, and a mostly-eaten bowl of cereal on the table. The kids were all in the playroom jumping on the bean bag couch.
As I took Daniel over to the changing table, I called out an observation: “I see milk and cereal on the table.” I heard Carter accuse Logan*, who denied the accusation. Carter is not a very reliable witness, but I was still pretty sure that Logan was the culprit. He’s the most likely kid to have served himself cereal for breakfast plus I had seen him leave out the milk and cereal several times yesterday.
As I continued with the diaper change, I said, “I don’t want the milk to go bad. I don’t want Daniel to dump out the cereal.” The kids continued to jump and play in the playroom with no indication that they’d heard me.
After I finished the diaper change, I went into the playroom and quietly looked at Logan until I caught his eye. Then in a firm voice, I said, “There’s milk and cereal on the table.”
He immediately walked over to clean it up, commenting, “I didn’t do it.” I followed him as he put everything away and said, “Thank you for fixing the problem. You are a problem buster!”
There were a few drops of milk and cereal on the table so I got a wipe and said, “I’ll wipe the table. We are a good team.” He agreed and went back to play.
I love that I was able to have Logan take responsibility (in actions if not in words) for a problem without any yelling, blaming, or arguing. Just neutral observations, physical presence and teamwork. This is how I want to parent so I’m always happy when I do it!
*Names of foster kids have been changed to protect their privacy.
Nathan: 1 and 2 makes 3. Me: Yeah. Nathan: Does 5 and 5 make 10? Me: Yup. Nathan: And 2 threes is 6. Does 3 twos make 6? Me: Yeah, and how about 4 twos? How many is that? Nathan [counting in the air]: 1, 2, 3, 4 . . . 5, 6. It makes 6. Me: No, it’s more than that. How about you make it with Duplos?
Nathan went off eagerly to get some Duplos, and came back with six of them. But when he paired them up into sets of two, there were only three sets! He had to go get some more.
Nathan: Four twos is eight. And eight can make a cube. Two by two by two. And seventeen can make a cube with threes. Me: Yeah, twenty-seven can make a big cube. If you got twenty-seven Duplos you could make it.
Right after I corrected him, he lost interest in the conversation. Maybe that was a coincidence, but I wished afterward that I had asked him to show me a cube with three-by-three-by-three instead of being a know-it-all and just telling him the right answer.
(His claim that seventeen can make a cube came from misremembering the NumberBlocks episode where Twenty-Seven and Octoblock team up against Octonaughty.)
Since then, Nathan has continued to do a lot of Duplo math: he’ll make various arrangements and count up the bricks to see how many, or he’ll talk about the shapes he can make with different numbers of Duplos. Soon enough I got another chance with the seventeen-cube business:
Nathan: Seventeen can make a cube. Three by three by three. Me: Do you want to make it? You can get some Duplos and try it out. Nathan: Okay.
He came back to the table with four Duplos.
Nathan: Can Four make a cube? It can! Two by two by two. Me: Look, it’s two this way and two that way, but it’s only one this way so it’s not a cube. Four can make a rectangular prism. Nathan: A rectangular prism? Me: Yeah.
[I had a feeling there was a nicer term than rectangular prism, and sure enough there is: cuboid!]
Nathan went back for more Duplos until he had eight.
Nathan: I know how to make three by three by three! Oh, and another one.
He headed back to the playroom for the missing Duplo. As he went I heard him talking to himself: “Three by three by three.”
When he came back, he had four stacks of three.
Nathan: Three by three by three. I made Seventeen. Me: It needs to be one, two, three. You need one more over here. Luke: You have twelve. Nathan: Twelve can be a . . . Cube! Me: Twelve can be a rectangular prism! Nathan: Look! It can make a cube! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12! Twelve can be a cube.
Luke helped out by bringing over another stack of three.
Nathan: Oh! I need another one, it’s not working for a cube. It needs six threes! Go find more Duplos. I found a Duplo! Oh I found more Duplos!
Nathan: Six threes! Green and yellow and red make . . . joop, joop, joop . . . six threes Mommy! I can switch it to stop light. Red, yellow, green.
He didn’t quite get to twenty-seven, but we had a good time.
Nathan: I want to make eighteen block. It’s three by two by two.
Nathan: Mommy, I want to make eight Duplos. It’s two by two by two. That’s what it is.
I’ve been observing a lot of pre-multiplication addition, by which I mean adding multiples of the same number to each other. I don’t remember Luke having the same focus at this stage. I guess Nathan is picking up on and tagging along with the stuff Luke’s doing, like Stick and Split, NumberBlocks, and even Multiplication by Heart. It’ll be fun to see how this continues as he gets older, and what it’s like for Daniel with two big brothers to follow after!
I showed Stick and Split to Luke after reading Tad Watanabe’s review of the game. I figured it would reinforce the multiplication he’s picked up from watching NumberBlocks, in addition to helping him start to wrap his head around the concept of division.
The game is pretty simple: there’s a target number at the top of the screen, and you have to stick smaller numbers together until you make the target number. The twist is that you can only stick numbers together if they are the same.
If you want to break a number up into smaller pieces, you can choose to split it. Again, this divides it up into equal pieces. You pick how many pieces you want to make and then see how long the resulting pieces are.
It’s a great way for kids to start thinking about multiplying and dividing to make different numbers. Luke enjoys completing the levels and winning the diamonds by doing special challenges. And sure enough, it has strengthened his knowledge of some multiplication facts and made him more comfortable with division.
I was surprised that Nathan, age 3, turned out to be just as interested in the game as Luke, age 5. It’s been fun for me to observe how he plays the game and listen to his chatter as he talks himself through it.
Nathan really likes browsing the level picker to choose a new level, rather than simply hitting next to go through the levels in their intended sequence. This means he often gets in way over his head since he hasn’t been putting in the practice on the smaller numbers. Sometimes he gets stuck and needs my help, but he can go a long way on his own, using the trial-and-error strategy. It’s a lot of fun to watch him working things out on his own. The other day I recorded his verbalized thoughts as he played a few levels.
Level 31, making 12 from 2s, 3s, and 4s:
“I’m going to make… three 4s can make 12! Mommy, three 4s can make 12!
“That’s make 4. I’m trying to make another 4. That’s make 12!
“Only one 2! Only four 2s can make 12.” (He noticed that he had an extra 2 left over and knew it wouldn’t be enough on its own to make a 12.)
“Oh no! I only have two 3s! That can make only 6.” He made the 6, leaving him with just a 2 and a 4.
“Only one 2! Split. 2.” He split the 4 to get two more 2s. He stuck them back together into a 4 and then split it again. This gave him the three 2s he needed to make a second 6.
“I’m trying to make this one. Oh it make! Two 6s. There we go.”
Level 54, making 20 from 10s:
“I’m going to make 20. And I can make 20!”
After successfully making his first 20, he tried to stick seven 10s together. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t allow the player to make a number larger than the current target number.
“Oh! I made 10s!” He tried again with four 10s but it still didn’t work.
“No! I’m trying to go 20. Split!”
When he finally put two 10s together, he was so excited: “20! 20! 20! 20! 20!”
Level 55, making 20 from 2s:
“Now I’m going to do another 20. Oh, 4. Another 4.”
He tried putting the 4s together: “20? 8!”
He made a 20 with ten 2s and then made some 8s and 16s.
“Oh noooo!”
After realizing that he couldn’t make 20 using two 16s, he ended his session by navigating to the privacy policy and then closing all the tabs.
Feature Requests
My main complaint about Stick and Split is that the implementation just doesn’t quite do justice to the amazing concept. At first, I couldn’t even get the game to work at all. Although I did receive some fabulous customer service when I reached out to support, we still occasionally experience issues with the game, such as it refusing to load or giving us frustrating glitches. It’s a real shame it isn’t more polished behind the scenes, given that it’s such a neat game.
Tad posted a follow-up to his original post that got me thinking about modifications to the gameplay. I wish the game was a bit more flexible in letting players try out their ideas. For instance, I wish it was possible to drag the pieces around to see if they would fit rather than just selecting pieces and pressing the button to watch them move on their own. I think this would help my kids see why certain moves don’t work — especially when they try to make a number that’s too big to fit. (Right now the game just gives an error message rather than showing visually what the problem is.)
Another cool feature would be the option to change the color scheme to be based on Cuisenaire rods or NumberBlocks. I think this would make it easier for kids to tap into the associations and intuitions they may have previously developed in these other contexts, helping them to internalize that e.g. two 3s always make 6.
Inspired by Paula Beardell Krieg’s wonderful blog post, yesterday I made little origami booklets with the kids. Rather than making a big announcement, I decided to take the sneaky approach: after laying out all the supplies, I just sat down quietly at the table and started to fold. Nathan climbed up into my lap right away but the big kids were busy racing around the house gathering nuts for their squirrels.
After I had folded my first book, Nathan dictated the contents for me: “Big O! Key. Door unlock it. Key.” I drew his pictures and added labels next to them. Then we read it together a few times to his great delight.
Eventually Luke and Noah trickled over and wanted to make books of their own. I demonstrated the steps to each of them, making sure to keep my paper oriented the same way as theirs to keep it as clear as possible. I haven’t done much paper-folding with them before so I wasn’t sure how difficult they’d find it, but they both did really well!
After reading Paula’s story about making these little books with a class of first graders, I was excited to see what kind of creativity these blank pages would unlock in my kids. What would they draw? What would they write? I couldn’t wait to see it!
The joke was on me because as soon as Luke was done with his booklet, he picked up my finished book and started copying it picture-for-picture and word-for-word. By the time Luke was done, Noah had finished folding and was waiting for his turn to copy my book!
When I remarked that Luke had made a copy of my book, he pointed out a difference I hadn’t noticed: he had reversed the page order so that his book read from right-to-left.
Noah’s changes were more obvious: in addition to using multiple colors, he condensed my double-spread layouts to single pages by putting the text on the same page as the pictures. This left him with some blank pages to fill, so he added a polar bear, a lion, and a “The end” on the back cover.
I was surprised to see that Noah also wrote his book from right to left. Unlike Luke, however, Noah maintained my page order by starting with my last page and working backwards through my book.
I gave Nathan a book to write in and he filled a few pages with O’s.
When I mentioned to Luke that his pages would be in the same order as mine if we looked at his book through a mirror, it gave me an idea: “Luke, I’m going to write you a secret message!” I filled out another booklet with mirror writing. Luke was very eager to get his secret message but when I finally gave it to him, he was a little confused about what to make of it. I gave him a hint by telling him I had written it in mirror code and he rushed off to the bathroom mirror.
He was very excited to discover my secrets!
This morning, the kids were rereading their books and hiding them in mailboxes for each other. With this renewed interest, I brought out supplies for second round of bookmaking. This time Noah wanted to make a bigger book so I showed him how to fold his paper into quarters. This was not enough pages so we made another set and stapled them together.
While Noah was filling his book with pictures of animals, Luke asked to have input into the book I was making. I guided him through a simple story structure. Who are the characters? What is the problem? What happens first? The resulting story involves a tractor chase, a bear blocking the escape route and some good dodging reflexes.
Now they’re acting out their story in the kitchen, with Luke as the tractor, Noah as the bear and Nathan as the little kids running away.
What a fruitful activity this has been! It’s always fun to see where we end up when things go in a completely different direction from what I was expecting.
Now my problem is choosing what to show them next: Bigger books with more pages? Mail boxes and envelopes? The Mirror Game? More secret codes? I guess I’d better observe their play over the next day or so to see if anything sticks out as a particular interest.
Less than three weeks after Nathan was born, Claudiu and I said yes to a foster care referral call and welcomed seven-year-old Sophie and three-year-old Jackson* into our home. They were with us for exactly one month before the county decided to move them to a different foster home to be with their little brother. We were sad to say goodbye, but also relieved. Now that we’ve been through the experience of having four kids, dropping back down to just two feels like easy mode.
*I’ve chosen pseudonyms for the blog to protect our foster kids’ privacy.
My sister is right: there’s definitely a learning curve when it comes to doubling how many kids you have, especially when it’s only been three weeks since you last doubled. It was chaotic at times (okay, all the time) but it was also cool to see my parenting skills develop at a frantic pace. It all happened so quickly, with so little time for reflection, that the new skills I acquired seem to operate on a subconscious level. I call them my mom instincts.
Jumping from one kid to four required a shift in how I allocate my attention. I am naturally very good at tuning out distractions so I can focus deeply on the task at hand. This is a weakness when it comes to parenting a bunch of small children. I developed a habit of checking the location and activity of each kid every few minutes. Maintaining this ongoing awareness allowed me to nip trouble in the bud.
The Suspicious Sounds Instinct
The problem with constant vigilance was that it was not conducive for getting anything else done. On the other hand, neither was constantly cleaning up the messes of beans, dry macaroni, ketchup, poop and microbeads that developed during under-supervised play. A new instinct developed for those times when I was in the middle of cooking dinner, nursing the baby, or packing for an outing.
As various sounds bombarded my ears, including endless rounds of Jackson yelling “haa-haa” and Luke yelling “Luke!”, my brain would filter through the noise and direct my attention to any sounds that might indicate a mess in progress such as a splash of water in the bathroom, the crash of something falling off a bookcase, or an unusually long or sudden silence.
Sophie had a particular giggle that signaled mischief. I learned to drop whatever I was doing and go investigate as soon as I heard that giggle. I also learned how to get toothpaste out of the carpet.
The Head-Count Instinct
Whenever we took the kids to the playground, Claudiu and I were constantly interrupting our conversations to do a head-count. “Nathan… Luke… Sophie… – do you see Jackson? Nevermind, he’s over there on the slide.” (We always included one-month-old Nathan in the count, even though he never left my arms.)
When I was by myself my mental count was just as frequent. In spite of this, Luke still managed to get lost at the neighborhood park. I left my bench to fill up a water bottle and he wandered off in the other direction looking for me. He was only gone for five minutes before a helpful teenager brought him back to the playground, but boy was it scary. I realized I had never taught him to stay put if he got lost.
Since then I’ve discovered Kidpower – an organization with wonderful resources for teaching kids how to stay safe. I love the instructions they give in their safety comic book: “The first thing to do if you are lost is stand tall and still like the trunk of a tree. Look around to see if you can find your grown-up. The next thing to do is yell for your grown-up.” If Luke had known to use those skills, it would have saved me a lot of worry that afternoon!
The Mess-Potential Instinct
Evaluating the mess-potential of any particular item became second nature. I developed an internal heads-up display that sets its crosshairs on abandoned beverages and half-eaten applesauce pouches. “Target acquired. Initiate disposal procedure immediately.”
Some products received a permanent ban from the home. I made the mistake of buying drinkable spillable yogurt – never again. Ditto on the red jello cups. A well-meaning visitor left us a bottle of cranberry juice cocktail and I made the executive decision to pour all 64 fluid ounces down the drain. It wasn’t worth the stress, not for a measly 5% juice.
The Keep-the-Laundry-Moving Instinct
The great thing about our current place is that the washer and dryer are right in the kitchen. The downside is it’s a compact unit so the washer holds less than half of a normal-sized load and the dryer takes two or three cycles to get that mini load dry. With four kids, we were generating a minimum of four loads a day, often more. Laundry had to be running pretty much constantly so I learned to be highly aware of when the washer or dryer had stopped so I could transition a load.
At some point I realized that I didn’t have to wait until the dryer stopped to turn the knob back up to the maximum length of time. “You married a genius,” I said to Claudiu when I figured that one out. I also realized that even if the dryer was occupied and I didn’t have time yet to hang a load of wets, I could at least free up the washer for another load of dirties by stashing the wets in their own laundry basket. I could progressively fill a basket with multiple loads of wet laundry and hang it in one big batch at an opportune moment.
The Somebody’s Gunning for a Timeout Instinct
We faced a lot of sibling conflict, especially between Luke and Jackson. Lots of name-calling, poking each other, snatching toys, pushing and hitting. I started to develop a sense for when someone was about to earn themselves a timeout. (You know you’ve been dishing out a lot of timeouts when the kids make a game of one person sitting in the timeout chair while the other one counts backwards from ten and beeps.)
If I was paying attention to the warning signs, I could sometimes intervene to prevent the offense either by redirecting, coaching or physically blocking. If I was not quite on the ball or too far away, at least I could see with my own eyes who did what.
I had to counteract my natural tendency to ignore the unpleasant behavior and bad feelings. I guess when I was a kid, tuning out was my main coping strategy when my younger siblings fought with each other. But now that I’m the grown-up, I’m responsible! I had to learn to pay attention.
It’s a work in progress. I have a lot more to learn about how best to handle constant conflict between siblings. I often compromised my own values, letting behavior slide or defaulting to punishment because I didn’t have the energy or the wisdom to give a more productive response.
Gratuitous baby picture
Now that I actually have time in my life for reflection, I want to write more about the ways I responded to all the sibling conflict – both what worked and what didn’t. We could get another placement at any time and I want to be prepared. There’s a lot of work I can do now that will help to improve my instincts for the next time around.
I heard Luke making frustrated squealing noises and came over to find him sitting on his tricycle. He was trying to get it going using the pedals, but they were in a position that made going forward tricky. I sat down on the couch nearby and offered to give him a push.
“No!” He cried and tried again to pedal, but it still didn’t work. He couldn’t get the pedals to go forwards and there was a table right behind the tricycle blocking him from getting the pedals into a better position by going backwards for a little bit.
I asked him if he wanted me to move the table out of the way, but again he said no. Then I suggested that he put his feet on the floor to push the tricycle forward a little bit and then try again with the pedals.
“I don’t want to put feet on the floor. I want to pedal the tricycle.” I sat and watched as he tried a few more times. Then he got down and pushed the table out of the way himself. Once he was back on the trike, the extra space he had created in the back gave him just enough wiggle room to get himself going forwards and he pedaled all the way across the room.
I love seeing his persistence even when he gets frustrated, and I love that he wasn’t interested in accepting my help. As hard as it is to sit and watch him struggle, it was completely worth it to see him solve the problem all by himself!
When she first got it, Luke definitely struggled with it. The pieces only fit on the pegs in a certain way and you have to get everything lined up just right in order to connect the animals into a train. Once it’s assembled, it’s sensitive to jostles and jolts — too much roughness and it falls apart. We’d put it together for him and he’d pull it for a little while, but lose interest once it came apart.
When we visited a few months later, however, he’d grown enough that it was the perfect level of challenge for him. He loved the puzzle of putting all the pieces together, but my favorite part was watching him carefully teach himself how to pull the train around sharp corners without tipping it over. Getting the train over the edge of the area rug presented a similar challenge. He went in endless laps around the ottoman until he’d mastered the skill of pulling the string at just the right time, at just the right angle, with just the right amount of force.
Watching my son in action made me appreciate toys that have a level of difficulty in them. He had to concentrate and be careful if he wanted to succeed with his goals.
I reflected on other pull toys I’ve seen, where the pieces are all connected and the center-of-gravity is low so they don’t tip over easily. So many toys for toddlers and babies seem to be designed with the goal of being fool-proof and frustration-free. (And reading the reviews of this particular train shows me why — a lot of parents are complaining that it’s too difficult.)
If a toy is too easy, the only way it can attract a child’s attention is through lighting up and singing. The child becomes a passive observer, entertained by the action of the toy. A toy that is tricky to operate, on the other hand, allows kids to pursue their own goals, hone their concentration, learn how to move their bodies with precision and develop perseverance and problem-solving skills.
Of course it’s no good for a toy to be so difficult that the child gives up out of frustration. If you have a toy that your child isn’t quite ready for, you can store it away for a while or look for ways to simplify it. Starting with just a few pieces, for instance, can help a younger child learn the basics of how the toy works without getting overwhelmed or confused.
But don’t be afraid of letting your kids struggle a bit, either! Consider giving them access to a toy that’s beyond their level. Make yourself available to lend a hand, but try to give only the bare minimum of help so that they are doing as much as possible by themselves. Resist the urge to intervene unless you see them about to reach the point of giving up. Kids sometimes come up with their own creative solutions to problems. My parents like to tell the story of how I would take the lid off my shape sorter so I could just put all the pieces in directly when I got tired of trying to find the right holes.
Also, don’t underestimate how quickly they develop new capabilities — in just a few short months you may have a completely different kid on your hands. It would be a shame to put a toy away only to bring it out when it’s already too easy to be interesting.
Unfortunately I have no pictures of Luke pulling his animal train, so here he is shoveling coal at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. It’s a good example of the kind of challenging activity I’m talking about: he had to be very careful in how he held the shovel in order to transport coal to the chute without spilling.
I love the Montessori mindset of observation, where you watch the child carefully to see what skills they are in the process of developing and let those observations guide you in preparing their environment.
Pretty much ever since my little buddy was big enough to grab for things, he’d grab for my pencil as I was writing in my notebook.Read More »
As I was getting my little buddy a snack this morning, I decided to let him serve himself from the container and see what happened. There were only nine or ten pieces left so I figured he couldn’t make too much of a mess!Read More »
The Daily Nurture 