Our neighborhood is packed with fourth graders. Seriously. It’s a phenomenon. Something like ten Fourth Graders live on the two cul-de-sacs in our neighborhood. Wonderful for a constant steam of hand-me-downs and future Nate-sitters. Not so wonderful that most of Catie’s playmates are two (or three) years older.
When Catie was in Kindergarten, the Fourth Graders were in second grade. They would come over to play at our house and I would chat with their moms. As it got to be dinner time, and I realized I hadn’t MADE any dinner and needed to package the kids up to go to Pei Wei, the other moms would tell their Second Graders it was time to go home to practice their Fast Facts.
In our school district, Second Graders take a test every Friday in which they have two minutes to write their addition facts. The Second Graders would groan and complain about Fast Facts. The moms would shuffle the big kids home, reminding them that they needed to practice every night for the test.
My kids would watch in awe. Fast Facts! It sounded so grown-up! So sophisticated. Catie would swoon over these big kids and beg for the chance to one day be old enough for tests.
That day is here.
Fast Facts are not sophisticated or fun or swoon-worthy. They are a pain. And the studying is not going well.
I (a person with limited math and logic ability) have told Catie to just memorize the answers to questions like 9+8. She was trying to figure out the answer on a number line or her fingers. I’ve never really understood number lines and everyone knows we don’t have 17 fingers.
“Don’t even think about the numbers. Just make up a song or something to help you.”
“But Mommy,” she said. “Daddy wants me to FIGURE OUT the answers.”
Figure out the answers? Who can do math like that so fast?
M, the math wizard probably FIGURED OUT the answers when he was in second grade.
The bad news is that the Fourth Graders are now talking about Fast Facts multiplication tests .
But, thankfully, Catie knows better than to think those sound sophisticated or fun.
Ed. Note: See this blog post to understand why Nate is holding an umbrella in our family photo.
