Learning Numbers

Her little mind is working so very, very hard these days.  Lately she has been working on developing her understanding of numbers and time and how many (is it a little or a lot?).  She has come up with her own approach to learning these concepts and it has been fascinating to watch.  Any time a number is mentioned by us (you have 5 more minutes, please eat 3 carrots) she wants to see it on her fingers.  She will hold up the correct number of fingers and say, "like this?".  Or if she doesn't know she will say, "show me how much", and want me to help her count on her fingers.  She has worked very hard on being able to show all the numbers on her fingers - especially 3!

I am a very visual learner, I need to see something on paper to fully understand it.  Discussing something in the abstract does not work well for me and I am known for my "pictures" or boxes and arrows or t-accounts (accounting speak!) at work.  The learning approach she has developed makes complete sense to me.  Seeing it on her fingers helps her understand how many it is compared to all her fingers, gives her a visual of something that has been said.  It will be interesting to see if this is a preview of how she learns in the future.