M Walker

This "teach one word" discussion reminds me of when my
son was learning to recognize numbers.

We went for a walk and he noticed the numbers on
houses. He was amazed that a 2 could have a loop or
not and still be a 2, or that a 3 could have a pointy
bit or be all curved and still be a 3. And a 4, my
goodness! It could look like a triangle or not, and
still be a 4! Wow!

We ended up talking about what was the essential (and
yes, I defined that word for him and we used it in our
discussion) shape of each number and how much
variation could take place and yet we could still
recognize it as that number.

And that led to noticing differences in cars, dogs,
chairs, but we still knew that they were, in fact,
cars, dogs and chairs. Then I told him about a
philosopher named Plato who wondered about this very
same thing--the Pure Form of a thing.

We came home and looked at different fonts on the
computer. He saw that letters could be played with
this way, too.

Pretty cool discussion to have with a 3yo!

- Meg


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Pamela Sorooshian

On Feb 12, 2006, at 9:01 AM, M Walker wrote:

>
> We went for a walk and he noticed the numbers on
> houses. He was amazed that a 2 could have a loop or
> not and still be a 2, or that a 3 could have a pointy
> bit or be all curved and still be a 3. And a 4, my
> goodness! It could look like a triangle or not, and
> still be a 4! Wow!
>

Yeah - you'd think that would be obvious to any literate adult, at
least, right?

But, no. When I was first learning some Farsi, my husband showed me
letters and numbers - and I got frustrated that other people's
letters and numbers didn't look like HIS! I remember saying, "But you
said it looked like THIS!" <G> And I also had to figure out what the
"essence" of each letter and number was, in order to recognize them
when they didn't look just like his. So - I have had that experience
as an adult and it makes me all the more amazed at how easily kid's
brains sort through all that (usually) without even being consciously
aware of it.

-pam

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

On Feb 12, 2006, at 10:01 AM, M Walker wrote:

> We went for a walk and he noticed the numbers on
> houses. He was amazed that a 2 could have a loop or
> not and still be a 2, or that a 3 could have a pointy
> bit or be all curved and still be a 3. And a 4, my
> goodness! It could look like a triangle or not, and
> still be a 4! Wow!


Though it's not ready for "unveiling," I've been working on a
collection of good parts from this discussion, and found some
illustrations for Meg's writing about the different-appearances of
numerals.

http://sandradodd.com/babytalk


-=-Then I told him about a
philosopher named Plato who wondered about this very
same thing--the Pure Form of a thing. -=-

There's a book a book called Philosophy and the Young Child. It's
not a long book, and it's not hoity or difficult at all. The word
"philosophy" scares people away sometimes, but most of what we
discuss on this list is philosophy. "To study philosophy" in school
is to study names and dates and to maybe learn to read German. It's
the history of "professional" philosophers, not the study of what
philosophy itself is in everyday life. Probably most people
wouldn't think their everyday lives have anything to do with
philosophy, and so the book can be VERY very world opening for parents.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674666062/ref=olp_product_details/
104-4120640-7200760?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155

The author is Gareth Matthews

Sandra