Clothespin Math

On the (long) trip home from a recent adventure my daughter had a blast teaching herself basic addition using a set of Montessori Color Spools I had made.   It is spontaneous learning and discovery like this that makes learning together so magical.  We capitalized on this period of discovery and have been “doing math” with all sorts of things lately.  Like counting all the cupboard doors on one side of the kitchen and adding them with the ones on the other side.  Or counting all the drawers and adding them to the doors.  Or counting the French doors and adding them to the solid doors.  Or counting the grown up shoes and adding them to the kidling shoes on the shoe mats (as we organize them of course!)  Along with moving around the house as we count we’ve been working with a wide variety of objects as we count and add.  Clothespins for example.  They are smooth and interesting to hold and add a sensory element to our math discoveries.  After we had worked through a page of sums we sorted the collection of clothespins according to their subtle differences, refining our senses and analytical skills.  I wonder if we can bring our clothespins with us as we approach calculus in a hundred years…!