Jakson is a "numbers" guy. He loves doing math on his own terms or as part of play. He remembers number details, and always seems to notice things with numbers. He gets enthralled watching numbers change on a timer and watching the time tick away on a clock. If I'm reading something to the kids, he's most likely to remember the number facts (like the sun is over 92 million miles from earth, or Mercury makes a complete rotation every 59 earth days - stuff like that). However, he moans and groans when I give him a worksheet for math. Although I still give him some math work to do, I don't want to squelch that natural enthusiasm, so I'm on the lookout for ways to practice his math in other forms.
Along these lines, Jakson really enjoys playing with pretend money. I printed out some things for a pretend grocery store and he had so much fun setting up his store with prices, sales, coupons and shopping lists. He spent lots of time writing amounts on price tags (which is amazing in itself as he's not crazy about handwriting). When he was ready I came to buy things with some pretend money and we did quite a bit of "spur of the moment" math computations as he added up my items, gave discounts for coupons and gave me change after I "payed" him. What a fun learning experience! I've gotta find more stuff like this!
