Sushi Math

Brother-Bug's all time favorite restaurant is SushiLand - one of those sushi places where we sit next to a conveyor belt and sushi rolls past us in limitless quantities. He tries it all, enjoying some things that I just can't stomach. At our last trip to the sushi restaurant, I realized we had an excellent math game right in front of us.

There are so many possibilities. The plates are 1.00, 1.50, 2.00, and 3.00 each. You pick your plates and the waiter adds up your total at the end of your gorging. On this trip, we kept it simple, just playing with some of the many numbers we encountered.

What to eat next? Tuna? Salmon? Octopus?

I kept my plates in one pile, he kept his in another pile. We estimated who was eating the most by looking at the two piles. At first we tried to keep track of how many of each plate, making hash-marks on our paper...but we got to excited about eating sushi to keep up with that.

It was just too good to track while we were eating...

At the end of our feast, we counted up. How many of each plate? How can we figure out the cost of that stack? Who ate the most? (He did - he out ate me by one plate.) About how much money did we spend? Which plate - 1.00, 2.00 - did we eat most of? Least?

Brother-Bug starts counting. I ate 9 plates. He ate 10. 

It was an awesome math game.

There are so many places it could expand as well. Multiplication, division, quantity of individual rolls...  Mental math as we add up the total... I could give him $15 and he could figure out some budgeting... And going the other way, we kept Sister-Bug involved by having her do some basic counting practice - how many rolls are on this plate? Everyone was really happy, full of sushi, and enjoying finding a new math game out in the world.

Bonus! Sister-Bug works on her fine-motor skills with her chopsticks....

What other things could we do with Sushi Math? I guess we will have to go back...

Mindful Monday: Re-Evaluating Screen Time

With the iPhone and the new desktop have come a loosening of the conscientious screen limits we have set for Brother-Bug. I'm not opposed to changing and shifting the limits, but I want to do so with intention and consideration.

There is so much available media for these little brains to navigate. There is so much wonderful and fun and useful media out there, and all of it is balanced by harmful, deleterious, and useless media that it causes me to quail as I contemplate letting more into our home.

But this is the world we live in, these are the tools and technologies we use and enjoy. It just calls for careful consideration of what and where and when and how.

Who: The Whole Family
What: Re-Evaluating Our Use of Screens
Why: To decide how we use these tools to connect, enjoy, learn, and grow.
How: Private parental discussion, followed byfamily discussion and brainstorming, and hopefully the creation of a plan.

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I still haven't re-initiated my evening walks. It might be something I do in a couple of weeks - after the grandparents leave for home and life slows down just a fraction.