What is Number Sense?

Number sense is simply common sense around problem solving involving numbers. You know, kind of like common sense in the kitchen? Some got it more than others.

We are cautious of young children in the kitchen because they have not built much common sense in the kitchen. They microwave a cup of water in the when 30 seconds would have sufficed to warm up the cup of tea they want to surprise you with. Or they may add cream to your tea, then decide to add lemon as well and end up with cheesy curdles. If you ask them to help with a recipe, and they misread 1 cup of sugar for salt, it does not set off loud alarm bells in their heads. If they are missing an ingredient in a recipe, they are stuck, even though there may be 3 other perfectly alternative ingredients right within their reach. A lack of kitchen common sense.

What does it take to develop common sense in the kitchen? Time, experience, reading books, cooking with other people, learning from mistakes. What is common sense in the kitchen NOT about? This is an even more important question because so many parents do a bunch of things, and mistakenly think it will build number sense.

Five ineffective ways to build common sense in the kitchen (and in math):

Ineffective Method #1: Limiting yourself to reading recipe books. Who would be so stupid, you say? How are you going to be a good cook just from reading recipes? Then why do we try to develop number sense by giving kids worksheet after worksheet? This may be helpful for older students, but young kids pre-K to 2nd grade should be playing with manipulatives, having Socratic dialogue to question and hone their thinking. “Children acquire knowledge through experience in the environment.” —Marie Montessori

Ineffective Method #2: Drill and kill. There’s a famous scene of a determined Julia Child mincing a mountain of garlic to hone that one specific skill in the movie Julie and Julia. Would you introduce the art of cooking to a youngster through a series of mind-numbing one-dimensional skill drills like that? I don’t think so. Yet that is exactly how kids end up thinking of math – separate silos of knowledge developed through repetitive drills after repetitive drills. The child is not able to see their relationships and is unable to apply them in new situations.

Ineffective Method #3: Cooking at a level the child is not ready for. No parent would use Julia Child’s book, “Master the Art of French Cooking” as an introduction to the joy of cooking. You got to do the easy stuff first or you’ll be so lost. Yet, we see students with big fundamental gaps being pushed up grade after grade. Is a child ready to add fractions if they cannot even visualize that 1/3 is larger than 1/8? “But it’s in the curriculum for the year, we cannot fall behind” is usually the reason for this unkind march forward. And yes, it is unkind. Making a child do math they are not ready for makes them feel stupid and bad about themselves.

Ineffective Method #4 Cooking as an academic exercise confined to specific times of the week. Today’s modern home has the kitchen as the center of the home. Food preparation and food enjoyment is a lifestyle. We don’t just nourish our bodies, we nurture friendships, bond with our children, laugh and connect in the kitchen, we talk about the food we prepared, the new recipes we plan to try, sometimes we just want a cup of chamomile tea, other times, it’s a 10-course feast, it’s interweaved into our everyday needs and wants. Yet math is presented as an isolated subject limited to certain time blocks at school and homework time at home. No wonder many kids feel that when they are done with school, they are also done with math. How sad. Adults who grew up with strong number sense think mathematically day in day out. What is the maximum I can pay for rent with my budget? Is this bag of lemon from Costco still a better deal, even if I only need 3 lemons? How much is a 20% tip? Is it worth getting charged a split plate fee at this fancy restaurant? By the way, Legal Seafood, one of my favorite restaurants, does not charge extra to split their amazing Fisherman Platter into a dinner for two 🙂

Ineffective Method #5 – Wrong focus on rules, rather than understanding. I heard a story about a woman who learned to make the perfect beef roast from her mother. When this woman passed on the recipe to her daughter, her daughter asked why she trims off the end of the roast before putting it in the oven. The woman explained that that’s just how grandma taught her. So the woman decided to call grandma and find out why after all those years. Grandma’s reason: Her oven was not big enough. I see that all the time. Kids following rules and algorithms solving math problems without understanding why. Why do you need to turn fractions to a common denominator when you add them, but not when you multiply them? Why is 0.45 smaller than 0.6? Is there an easier way to think of 99 x 3 without paper and pencil? This focus on following rules and algorithm has 3 bad outcomes: a) your child does not develop flexible thinking and problem solving skills. b ) rules are forgotten or remembered wrong; understanding is forever c) math becomes dry and boring.

Do ineffective methods just waste your time, or cause more lasting damage? Definitely the latter. At best, your child grows up to find math boring. At worst, your child thinks they are not wired for math. They cannot get concepts (because foundational gaps hold them back), they feel frustrated, embarrassed, and stupid. Stupid? Now, that’s very interesting phenomenon: If a child does not know the capital of Indonesia, or cannot name the 7 continents of the world, they’re not too embarrassed – they tell themselves to study more, or consult their buddies, Alexa and Google. But if a child can’t follow the math the teacher is doing on the board, they look around the classroom, and they start wondering if they are stupid. Kids don’t understand that it’s not them. We failed them, they didn’t fail us.

The sad irony is that by just investing a few minutes a few times a week, with the right method, you and your child will have much more fun developing their mathematical thinking and raising their confidence around problem solving with numbers.


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