Two Stories

Two stories I want to remember from this week:

Hunter's Story
On Monday, we had a Family Home Evening lesson where we talked about missionary work and what we can do now to prepare for a mission. Hunter said he wanted to go to Greece and Egypt on his mission-the only exotic places he knows much about! Both boys seemed quite excited to be missionaries when they grow up by the end of the lesson. Afterwards, we went out for ice cream. When we were driving to Cold Stone (it was my b-day so we were going all out for our treat), we saw the missionaries riding their bikes. Of course we honked and waved and talked about how funny it was to see them after just learning about being missionaries. Suddenly we hear tears from the backseat. "What's wrong Hunter?" "I can't be a missionary because I don't know how to ride a big bike like them!" Then the tears exploded into full on sobs. We assured him that in the next 15 years we were sure he would learn how to ride a bike and he would grow so he could reach the petals on those big bikes. He didn't seem convinced. We better start working on riding a bike so he won't have to worry!

Tanner's Story
The other day I was all excited to teach Tanner about multiplying by 5's. He knows his 1's, 0's and 10's. So I do the lesson involving manipulatives to make sure he really understands the concept. Then, keeping the manipulatives out in front of him so he could use them to count it out, I ask him to answer 5x6. "30" he responds without blinking an eye. "How do you know?" "Because 6x10 is 60. 5 is half of 10, and 30 is half of 60." I would have never of thought of that. He obviously gets his logical thinking from his Grandpas, one who is a CPA and the other who has his undergrad in math, not his parents. Math skills must skip every other generation. I thought for sure the problems with odd numbers (5x7, 5x9) would throw him off but, he knew them all instantly. I am so proud of my little mathematical thinker!