Slashdot Mirror
Teaching Calculus To 5-Year-Olds
Doofus writes "The Atlantic has an interesting story about opening up what we routinely consider 'advanced' areas of mathematics to younger learners. The goals here are to use complex but easy tasks as introductions to more advanced topics in math, rather than the standard, sequential process of counting, arithmetic, sets, geometry, then eventually algebra and finally calculus. Quoting: 'Examples of activities that fall into the "simple but hard" quadrant: Building a trench with a spoon (a military punishment that involves many small, repetitive tasks, akin to doing 100 two-digit addition problems on a typical worksheet, as Droujkova points out), or memorizing multiplication tables as individual facts rather than patterns. Far better, she says, to start by creating rich and social mathematical experiences that are complex (allowing them to be taken in many different directions) yet easy (making them conducive to immediate play). Activities that fall into this quadrant: building a house with LEGO blocks, doing origami or snowflake cut-outs, or using a pretend "function box" that transforms objects (and can also be used in combination with a second machine to compose functions, or backwards to invert a function, and so on).' I plan to get my children learning the 'advanced' topics as soon as possible. How about you?"
As the homeschooling parent of a 5 year old we have learned this first hand. We stumbled upon a set of books called Life of Fred that are "story books" that incorporate math. They were written by a math professor tired getting students that didn't know math and thought it was "hard". He incorporates basic algebra using x from almost the very beginning. They cover many topics that most think of as "advanced math" in simple, natural ways. As the story unfolds Fred has to use math in a variety of situations. It shows that math is practical and teaches it in an accessible way. Even better, the stories are silly and ridiculous and fun for all ages.