Did you know that math homework can make the mother/daughter bond grow by leaps and bounds? Strange as it may seem, it appears to be true in our home which considering that our home is a place of all sorts of strangeness I shouldn't be surprised.
The most recent occurrence of this was yesterday when I. arrived home with some math homework, a little tricky than normal. She tried her best but asked me to help her understand it. After looking at it, I showed her a way to study the chart first and organize in such a way that when it came time to answer the questions, all she had to do was some simple calculations instead of having to redo the math for each row every single time. It obviously made sense to her because her brow immediately became unfurrowed and as she was able to easily answer the questions that were once hard to her, she became excited. It all culminated with her giving me a big hug and telling me that I was the best mommy, that she loved me so much, and that she loved doing math homework together. It's happened before where I will show her some trick to help simplify her math homework, telling her that she needs to remember the trick so that she can use it on her test where I will not be there to help her. She's come home after the test and tells me, "I used your trick!" and proudly shows me the 100% on her test.
I'm a big proponent of kids doing their own homework so usually my help is along the lines of simply organizing information so that in order to answer the questions, she's basically just analyzing what she's already done. She's still doing the math but just not having to do the same calculation over and over to answer the questions. What I am thankful for is that her mind appears, at least in a mathematical sense, to work much like mine which is what is allowing our brain connection over math homework. I know from my own school days that in math, if the teacher has a way of explaining it that you don't understand, you're not going to get it and vice versa, if you find a math teacher that you can understand practically the first time around, you should try to take as many math courses as possible from that person. I remember taking a statistics course in college. I would do the reading and the homework and understand the material until I went to class and listened to the teacher. Her explanation of the lesson would have me so confused by the end of class that I just stopped going to class. I read the book, did the homework, showed up for the tests, and got an A.
Who knew that I would be thankful for math homework?!
1 comment:
One more time, "amazing mom" at work. I loved this post especially in light of the times that are so frustrating. A few of these times can go a long way to filling the emotional bank account!
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