The Joy of Discovery

Recently we had relatives visiting from Germany.  A family of four, with a daughter 4 1/2 (not 4, I was told!) years old.  While mother and father were busy with the baby, I had the opportunity to play with the 4 1/2 year old.  I looked through my stack of games for something suitable for her age, preferably something that didn't involve a lot of struggling between English and German.  After a game of Memory (which youngsters are far too good at!) I pulled out Bee Lines - a math related game that uses addition and subtraction of numbers up to 10.

The idea is to be the first to create a continuous line from one side of the board to the other, or from top to bottom, with your bees (red or blue background).  To do so, on your turn you spin two spinners, each with the numbers 1 through 10 on them.  If you spin a 5 and a 9, you can place a bee on a 4 (9 minus 5) or a 14 (9 plus 5) to help build your line.

That's the game.  Our visitor was happy to work at adding and subtracting the necessary numbers, but after a few turns, we decided to try a number line instead of counting on our fingers. We drew a nice large number line, and she would start with the bigger number (she could figure that out) and count, first up, and then down, from there to get to the two numbers she could choose from to place her bee on.

So when she spun a 10 and a 5, the excitement, the sheer joy and the laughter when she counted up to 15, then down to 5, and realized that her spin (the 5) was the same as her answer was incredible!  And not only the 5, but the 15 ended in the same number!  Then when she spun an 8 and a 4, and one of her answers was 4.  More joy and laughter.  And when 8 and 5 gave her 13 and 3.  Wow!  Her joy of discovery was a joy to watch.  Her excitement and laughter were infectious.

A young girl was discovering math for herself and loving it.  Who says math is hard?  Math is fun!

By the way, Bee Lines is a great math game to play with young people.  We bought it to play with our kids many years ago.  I now use it with my young tutoring students when we need a break from pencil and paper.