One of our kids faced a problem that asked them to take half of a not-so-friendly number.
"What is half of 1,537?"
I suggested that we could do it much more easily without using the algorithm. Needless to say, he was engaged. I'm with him...make things easier? I'm all ears!
So I asked him to use the place values:
"What's the highest place value?" One thousand, he said.
"What's the next highest place value?" Five hundred, he said.
We did this until we accounted for 10s and 1s.
Then I asked him to take half of each place. That was greeted with the "OOOHHH, I get it" we all strive for them to achieve. He finished the rest. We did a few more "unfriendly" numbers this way until he eventually stopped writing down the places.
He rightfully pointed out that the only "unfriendly" number was the 7. He went on and said that even that wasn't all that unfriendly, it just took "breaking the last cookie in half, but that half cookie tasts just as good as the whole ones."
Talk about a kid getting it...let's keep making smiles!
-Carlo
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