The concept of Units: how talking with young children is an investment, indeed!
- Frédérique and the Wooden Fellows
Finally, the day I have been waiting for years has come! Last week we discussed how talking with young children is an investment for years to come.
This week, I crossed a perfect illustration of such a statement, when a discussion with Rosie, now in high school, around moles in chemistry brought us back to discussions around units when she was in Kindergarten.
Talking about units with young children…
What do we mean by unit? Well, in the context of this post, any single item that we count, could be seen as a unit. One apple, three books, zero (don’t forget zero!) unicorns, and so on, and so forth. With time, children are exposed to standard units, to measure length, weight, or time, the conversion of units (one pear + 2 pears = 3 pears, but one pear + one apple would require a change of unit, i.e. two fruits), etc. Long story short, talking about units with young children is an important task to stimulate their mathematical thinking, and when done well, can also be associated with a lot of fun for young, and not so young, brains.
As mentioned in previous posts, picturebooks are a great way to engage young children with early mathematics. Let’s review two books aligning with our story this week, and the concept of units.
The first book is 1+1=5 and Other Unlikely Additions, by LaRochelle and Sexton, challenging the readers to think about units, in the context of addition equations, in which both sides of the equal sign must have equal values.
For instance, 1 + 1 = 3?
Well, it depends on the unit! 1 unicorn + 1 goat = 3 horns
Rosie had a lot of fun playing with it when she was in lower elementary grades, and so did many young children I read the book to since I discovered such amusing book.
One would say an equation: “1 + 1 = 10!”
Giggles, giggles.
Others would have to come up with a matching unit. “I know! 1 car + 1 truck = 10 wheels!”
In the same spirit, the book More than One, by Schlein and Crews, focuses on the fact that “one” can represent more than one object, but can also represent a “set” or a “group”.
One family can be two people, three people, etc, one team can be seven players, etc.
Again, another opportunity to have fun with young children, playing with mathematics beyond the common activities of counting single items from one to ten.
Young children, once exposed to this book, naturally find examples all around them — one class with 16 of us, a bag of several apples, a box of 8 markers.
In More Than One, I like the page about family, and the invitation to ask the audience, “How many in your family?”. Never too young to hear about different family structures!
I took the example of 1 pear + 1 apple = 2 fruits to highiligh the change of unit, even though young children usually do not add a unit when writing equations.
With my background in chemistry and biology, I have always thought: what a wonderful cornestone towards chemistry would it be if they did.
A decade later, I am even more convinced.
… so we can better support them when they take chemistry in high school!
In chemistry, keeping track of the units is not just helpful, it is quite fundamental to assure accuracy.
And here I was this week, with Older Rosie, guiding her with moles, grams, and number of atoms, through going back to bags of marbles, pears and apples, jubilating that talking about units with young children, is, indeed an investement for years to come.
As always, thank you so much for being here, and see you next week!
* Periodic table printed from https://www.periodictable.co.za/