DS6 had his first official foray into real multiplication and division yesterday. He’s played around with the concept on his own, and done some simple single digit by single digit multiplication with me, but nothing much outside his own thought experiments (e.g. mental math time conversions from hours to seconds in the car when he wants to figure out how much longer until X, baking unit conversions or recipe doubling, making loot bags for parties and dividing prizes, etc)

Yesterday, he tried his hand at what he felt was an appropriate novice problem and solved it correctly: 4,232,436 x 23. He also attempted some division: 7,063,248/ 2. It seems Beast Academy has fueled a love of what DS calls “challenges” (often said with a wry smile).

Hilariously, he thought these weren’t real solutions, because he’d used Montessori materials to help him reach his answer. Apparently, to him, he’ll have shown mastery only when he can do these calculations quickly in his head. I expressed that some of the most challenging math problems in existence require brilliant mathematicians to struggle for years—on paper and with algorithmic support on computers—to solve. He seemed to buy that conceptually, but insisted he will do the multiplication and division in his head.

Another little math brag: DS has been having fun issuing me verbal code-breaking equations to give me single-word answers to questions I ask. He’ll give me a little algebraic equation to solve, and the answer is a number-to-letter substitution cipher. But he does this all verbally, without pen or paper, which amazes me, and the spelling is mostly correct. I never thought this was how I’d take pizza orders from him!




What is to give light must endure burning.