Playdough maths

We were just sitting at the dining table, after dinner, playing with the playdough(*), while Chris took the dog out for his evening walk. One of my favourite things to do with playdough is roll it into balls (adventurous, I know). I find it quite a soothing activity and love getting the balls as round and smooth as possible.

I was doing this, almost without thinking, while glancing at my Google Reader to catch up on a few blogs (as you do) and passing the finished balls to Rosemary.

At some point I noticed that she was counting the balls, each time I gave her a new one. And counting them properly, which is something she’s only recently got quite good at – she used to be very impatient and either skip items or count one item three or four times. The next ball I finished, I held it up and asked ‘If we put this one down, how many do you think there will be? If there are four balls now. What comes after four?’ ‘Five!’ ‘That’s right. Shall we count them and see if we’re right?’ ‘Yes!’ ‘One, two, three, four, five. Yes! We’re right!’ ‘Yay! Four and one make five. Is there any more playdough?’ ‘Here you go.’ and so on and so on, until we got to ten. Then she started putting them into the jar while counting them and then taking them out and handing them to me and counting them.

At some point during this, it suddenly occurred to me that we were doing maths. You know, simple addition. Wow – how exciting is that? I’ve been waiting all my life for a child who will enjoy doing maths with me. And it’s starting already. I do hope we can keep up her interest, so that she lets me join in with her algebra with her, too, when the time comes.

What spontaneous learning activities have you come up with recently? Is there something you’re really looking forward to doing with your children when they’re ready?

(*) Technically, it’s called Soft Stuff, as it’s the dough from the Early Learning Centre. You can read my review of the Bumper Activity Jar over at The Great Toy Guide, if you like.