On the way home after picking up the Kiddo from daycare/preschool, we chatted in the car with her like usual, asked her how her day was, if she had fun, etc.  Today was someone’s birthday, and there was goodie bags, so she was digging through and eating the candy – a twizzler, a roll of Smarties, a DumDum and a little bag of Skittles – the only thing that was left by the time we got home was a few Smarties and the bag of Skittles – but only because she couldn’t open it herself.

Out of the blue, my husband asks her, “What’s 2 + 2?”

The answer from the back seat – “Four!”

My husband and I gave each other this look that said – “Did she just answer that correctly??”

So he asked her another question, “What’s 1 + 1?”

The answer from the back seat – “Two!”

Once is a fluke.  Twice – and a different question at that – is not likely to be coincidence .

So he mixed it up a bit and asked what is 1 + 2.  She said, “two.”  2 + 1?  ”I don’t know.”

Okay, so she doesn’t just magically know all math.  He asked what 2  + 2 was again, and she answered “Four” again.  So she at least knows 2 + 2 and 1 + 1.  She even repeated them again when he called to brag to Grandma and she asked the Kiddo.

We are thinking they may be teaching these at school, I figured I would ask them tomorrow when I drop her off in the morning and see what they say.  If they are, that’s great that she is remembering so quickly.  If they aren’t, then I wonder where she is getting it, because we aren’t teaching her that, and she doesn’t watch much “learning” television…

Actually, come to think of it, her classroom DOES have a computer (which she LOVES), and I know they have some learning games on it, so maybe she is picking it up from there?

I think that is just wonderful that she’s picking this stuff up.  She already recognizes her name when it’s written and occasionally we will work on spelling it with her, and she also recognizes a few other simple words that we write on her magna-doodle.  But we’ll not pressure her to learn this stuff early, if she gets it, she gets it and that is quite fine by us.

Tags: Fun, Kiddo, Learning Games, Math, Smart