I woke up on Monday morning so excited to meet my eleven year old granddaughter at a library half way between her home and mine.  While driving thirty minutes to the designated meeting spot, I found myself in a “feel good” moment as the rays from an emerging spring sun periodically lit on my face. Surviving a rather long and cold winter I welcomed this spectacular warmth.

The beautiful hills and valleys I traveled were dotted with farm silos, horses and cows, and farm machinery. It reminded me of a time long ago when I traveled this same route on visits back home to Pennsylvania with my husband and four children. Soaking in the sights, I almost missed the exit to the back road where this beautiful library sat nestled on a small hill directly above a lovely park and children’s playground.

My daughter had an appointment to keep so I had at least an hour to spend with my granddaughter. Our meeting came about from a brave decision my daughter made to pull her daughter out of the local public school about two weeks ago. At this point in the school year, many might say why pull her out now? When my daughter shared her decision with me, I said, “Congratulations – how can I help?” So my help came in the form of meeting at the library to see where Alexis is with regard to mathematics.

In an attempt to gauge how best I could help her, I asked her a few questions. First, to share with me the school assigned 5th grade math books she brought with her. She set FIVE paperback books on the table and proceeded to tell me the purpose of each one. One for classwork, one for homework, one for extra practice, one for more extra practice and one that was an exact duplicate of the other.  FIVE books!  As one whose job it was to order and purchase textbooks for my former school district, all I could see was dollar signs $$$$$ and money wasted that might have gone towards teacher salaries.  I set the books aside.

Before moving onto the the next question, she informed me that she was not very good in math, that she was just average. I asked her how she came up with that analysis. Without hesitation, she said, “that’s what my teacher told me.” I asked her if she thought that was true. She giggled and said, “maybe or maybe not.”

As we made our way through this informal math Q & A,  she started to perk up quite a bit.  The discussion gave us a starting point and without my direction, she chose to focus on fifth grade fractions.  I shared the online Khan Academy as a quick way for her to access/practice fraction problems. I asked her to explain to me the steps she took to get her answers.  She easily did that. She also told me that there is not enough time in school to ask a lot of questions so sometimes she doesn’t get the right answer. 

She was also quite amused that the method shown (pictorial fraction segments) in the Khan Academy video was different than how her book taught her but that the answer was still correct. I assured her that there might be even more ways to solve problems than the way we had both learned. She approved that idea and said, “I’d love to know them all!”

I let her decide when it was time to end since her mom gave us an open-ended opportunity. She chose to take four of the mini quizzes that Khan offers before calling it quits for the morning. She made one or two minor errors that she chose to correct. Her proclamation before we headed to the park sounded like this; “I guess I’m not average after all and I really do like math, thanks Grammy!” I just asked questions and she directed herself.

My takeaways:

1. Worth the 30 minute drive.
2. Happy to help.
3. Beautiful time with my granddaughter.
4. Alexis asking when will we do math together again.

Her takeaways:

1. Worth the 30 minute drive.
2. Glad my Grammy can help.
3. Fun time with Grammy.
4. Learning that she is not “average” whatever that is, and that she might actually like math.

Footnote:  I highly recommend going to a park right after doing math, it’s exhilarating!