Bentley had a fever today of 38.5 C under his arm (meaning his internal temperature is likely 39.5 C), so Beth stayed home with him while the girls and I went to class on this last school day of the 2009-2010 school year. Apparently, kicking around the house, snuffing and feeling rotten, at one point Bentley came it to put his hand on Beth's arm while she was working on a math course at her desk in the bedroom. "What are you doing, Mom?" he said when he saw her using the Ti-84 calculator.
"This is a calculator. You can type in the numbers and it can do things like add them. For example [seeing his green soldiers on the bed], if you have 5 soldiers in this pile, [Beth typed 5 in the calculator] and 10 soldiers in this pile [she showed Bentley how to type 10 into the calculator] then [she presses "="] ... you have 15 soldiers all together [Beth shows Bentley the total on the screen.]
So for the next 30 minutes, playing on the bed, Bentley grouped his soldiers to together ( "8 and 3") then typed the number into the calculator: "11." Next he hand counted them just to confirm the answer; sure enough: ELEVEN!
Watching how children engage and learn is educational. Bentley's love of understanding how and why things work is so beautiful to observe! He makes me so proud!
Image from <http://www.funcarnival.com/store/00320.html>