Either my kid is a genius or I’m a freaken idiot! (I’m leaning towards my kid being a genius)
She’s in the 3 rd grade now and is practicing for the NYC state exams which are the ELA (English Language Arts Test) and the Math. I’m not too worried about the ELA since she’s the best reader in her class (proud mommy moment), but unfortunately she has inherited, amongst several other undesirable traits, my shitty math skills.
Lil Z is ALRIGHT in math, but thank the good lord for her problem solving skills. She asked me to help her with some questions; now you tell me if I’m crazy for thinking they are confusing. Question:
“Write 2 addition problems with the same number of addends, one problem using odd numbers and the other using even numbers. Explain what is common o both answers.”
What the fuck is an addend and what the hell do they mean by common? I googled addend (it turns out my common sense was on the nose with this one) and Lil Z and I were able to figure it out. It turns out if you add 2 odd numbers or 2 even numbers, the sum is always even. A lesson she will surely use throughout her entire lifetime.
The next questions was a little trickier. Her response to this next question blew me away! Question:
“Julie, Lara, Roberto and Matt are in line to buy movie tickets. Write a problem that gives clues about their order in line from first to last.”
Umm ok. I understood what they were asking but I was stumped. We started brainstorming about someone waiting online to buy tickets for her friends. Apparently Lil Z’s creativity really helped her with this one. She wrote a problem and she didn’t let me read it because she wanted to surprise me. Every time she wants to surprise me… She usually actually surprises me!
When she was done she read me this:
“(Ahem) Julie was waiting on line to buy tickets for her friends. Lara and Roberto saw Julie in line. Roberto had already bought his ticket. Mathew then texted Julie and let her know he was running really late. Who was last in line.”
Oook, that was way better than I expected (surprise). I said “Mathew?” She said “no, he was running late remember. (I knew that was a trick question ;0) “Roberto?” “No, he had already bought a ticket. The last one on line is Lara. She was the only one other than Julie that didn’t have a ticket and was on line.”
True f*cken story!
I may be completely over crediting her because she is my spawn, but her story seemed pretty freaken impressive to me (she’s in the 3rd grade!)
The point of this post; my daughter is a genius, that is all…
I’m impressed! I already got lazy to even think when I read “Write a problem…”. Can Lil Z attend my MBA classes? I’m suuuure she’ll do better than this old fart
Lol, my smart little cookie ;0)