How do you teach a kid how to count the number of days?
I was driving Caleb and Sarah to attend a birthday party last Thursday when I started having this conversation with Caleb. He asked me to bring him on a picnic and I readily agreed coz our caregroup had already planned to do one over the weekend. He asked me when would we be going, so I told him, Saturday. Then he asked me,"Oh, is it tomorrow?" And I told him that since today's Thursday, Saturday would be in two day's time. He then told me that it's not in 2 day's time but 1 day's time because today is Thursday, after 1 more day, it would be Saturday. So the picnic would be in 1 day's time.
I could see how he thought it was only 1 more day but didn't quite know how to explain to him that he was counting the days wrongly.I tried to help him to see that Saturday was 2 days away from Thursday by asking him to number his days.
Monday would be 1 and Sunday would be 7. So Thursday would be 4 and Saturday would be 6. And then I asked him, if I have 6 days and I took away 4 days, how many days would that be? And he said 2 days. Then I tried to explain to him that therefore, Saturday is 2 days after Thursday. (Really tough job to be a parent nowadays. And I had to do all this and try to come up with examples and simple analogies whilst driving.)
Anyway, my little mathematical explanation didn't quite get through to him and he insisted that I was wrong and kept asking me why I said that Sat is not 1 day away from Thursday. And then, finally, he said," Mummy, I don't want to continue arguing with you all the way to the party. Let's talk about this another day."
I was surprised that he thought that we were arguing. So I said," Oh Caleb, but I'm enjoying our little discussion." And then my son said,"But Mummy, I'm not enjoying it. We keep talking about this and I don't want to argue with you until the party is over. I want to enjoy my party. Let's talk about this another day. Maybe after the party."
I'm really quite amused by Caleb's responses. We haven't talked about it ever since then coz I haven't quite figure out how else to explain to him that Thursday is 2 days before Sat. I guess this will require more time and more creativity before I can get through to him.
