I get it!

Morgan is a kinesthetic (hands-on) learner. Fortunately, I realized this at an early age. She never wanted to sit and color. She wanted to be outside exploring – collecting rocks, leaves, bugs, and sticks. When we would go to the store she would handle and touch everything as she asked,
“What’s this? What's it for?”

Unfortunately, public schools are not always designed to be supportive of this learning style. Maybe that’s why her favorite subjects have always been science and recess. And I know that’s why she memorizes her spelling words best while climbing under and over the bench at our dining table.

Multiplication has been a HUGE challenge for her this year. Her teacher would send home extra worksheets for extra practice and have her stay in from recess to review flash cards. Neither method was working. (Although she was starting to memorize the answer pattern on the worksheet.)

One night, she was struggling with staying focused long enough to finish her worksheet. Then she blurted out, “I just don’t get it!” That’s when I got out a bucket of beans. Using paper circles to represent groups she counted out the number of beans in each group for 4 x 6, then 2 x 3, then 8 x 9. We did the rest of the worksheet creating groups and counting beans. Her face lit up as
she wrote the last answer and she exclaimed,
“I get it!”

She is not the fastest in her class but she can at least tackle the worksheet without so much anxiety. And now, instead of memorizing the answers she actually understands what she is doing. More importantly, she can apply her knowledge to calculate the answers on other worksheets.

Having a learning experience with my child brings me the greatest JOY!