Since Advent the little bit of formal math we do has pretty much gone by the wayside for a while. But since I did my usual thing of moving books from the shelf to the coffee table, there are a lot of math books lying about. Last week, Becky and I had looked through this book, just casually. I mentioned to her that her older sister had a done a science fair project from this book on how computers use the binary number system. Well, a few days later, Becky got inspired to make a 'computer' like her older sister had done. She had fun making it but I wasn't sure she'd actually gotten the concept of binary numbers down.
Fast forward to yesterday. It was midmorning and we'd done some penmanship but I wanted to do something else too that was 'educational', so I said, "Hey kids, let me read aloud to you about math. Here's the book Hannah says I should read to you." Sean protested that he wanted to do a Sudoku while I read to him. He got out his DSI and started on a Sudoku Extra. He showed me his strategy for figuring out what number went where. He's very systematic about it.
So I started reading. We read about Thales figuring out how to measure the height of the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Sean vaguely remembered the story from when I read it aloud years ago. After that, I picked up this book and said, "I've never really read this book. Let's see what it's about." Well, the very first topic in the book was about the base 2 number system! So I read it. Becky was a bit puzzled by it, so I grabbed a scrap of paper and pencil and we figured it out. And she got it!
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