Stop and think

It looks like most of the math problems used in schools is targeted at kids getting a skill of automatically apply their knowledge to the problem. While this is very valuable it also prevents kids from thinking out of the box, from stopping, pausing before proceeding with the known approach. I remember when my son was around 5, he was able to figure out "Wolf, Goat and Cabbage problem"* with a number of attempts. When he was 6-7 - he gave up after about a minute of trying and realizing that trying to bring either wolf, goat or cabbage to another shore will fail. He wouldn't think of an original solution - to bring somebody back from the other shore.

It turns out that there are simple exercises that develop "Inhibitory control" - ability to not let the automatic response run the show.

Here are some ideas from "Mind in the making" by Ellen Galinsky which may be good for kids starting 3-4 year old:

1. Anti Simon says. Simon says "touch your toes". The child has to do the opposite (touch the head)
2. Playing a game with changing rules. For example, given a set of things of different sizes and colors, first order the things by sizes. Then order the same things by colors, or by categories.
3. Tap once after I tap twice. Tap twice after I tap once.
4. Show a picture of a day and ask a child to say that it is night and vice versa.


* Given wolf, goat and cabbage, transport them to another shore, with the condition that a wolf can not be with goat, and goat can not be with cabbage. There is a boat and only one thing can be in the boat at a time.

"Mind in the Making" by Ellen Galinsky

I started reading an amazing book by Ellen Galinsky - "Mind in the making", 7 essential skills to teach your children, which are:
1. Focus and self control
2. Perspective taking (figuring out what others think)
3. Communicating (Understanding what to communicate and how the communication will be understood by others)
4. Making connections (Making unusual connections is at the core of creativity)
5. Critical thinking (Understanding cause and effect)
6. Taking on challenges
7. Self directed, engaged learning.

Immediately lots of ideas about the things I can do with my 8 y.o. and 3.5 y.o. to teach some of these things:
1. Focus and self control
- 8 y.o. - tournaments. Levi is playing in chess and tennis tournaments and these are really great to train focus and self control - just the fact that he can concentrate for hours during the tournament says a lot.
- 3.y.o. - one thing I can do is to have her calm down when hysterical. Tell her to calm down and then I'll talk to her.


2. Perspective taking
- 8.y.o - writing about characters in a book, how they feel
- 3.y.o. - picture book - describe how characters feel
Also, role playing - put up an improv or a play.