There was a phase where my 7 year old asked me how many X there are (X being like your examples) and after he knew that things are made of particles (German: ‘Teilchen’ which also build nicely on ‘part’/‘Teil’) aka atoms he asked lots of questions like “how many water particles are there in a cloud” (or in a water drop).
I remember that I counted and then calculated lots of things when I was in primary school (windows in a building, squares on the floor), but these were fairly concrete items where you did lots of multiplication but cound still count them in theory.
It looks like you are doing a good job with your kids.
There is also a whole set of questions dealing with probabilities. For example: “what is the chance I’ll meet someone I know when going on a weekend trip?”. These kind of questions often require more than one step.
There was a phase where my 7 year old asked me how many X there are (X being like your examples) and after he knew that things are made of particles (German: ‘Teilchen’ which also build nicely on ‘part’/‘Teil’) aka atoms he asked lots of questions like “how many water particles are there in a cloud” (or in a water drop).
See also http://lesswrong.com/lw/iha/raising_numerate_children/ esp. the comment http://lesswrong.com/lw/iha/raising_numerate_children/9o8z
I remember that I counted and then calculated lots of things when I was in primary school (windows in a building, squares on the floor), but these were fairly concrete items where you did lots of multiplication but cound still count them in theory.
It looks like you are doing a good job with your kids.
There is also a whole set of questions dealing with probabilities. For example: “what is the chance I’ll meet someone I know when going on a weekend trip?”. These kind of questions often require more than one step.