Ok ok ok, bear with me I've only gotten half way but I needed it so I could continue to teach my little one how to count. I promise I'll get around to completing it.
So how did we get here? Why is this number 10 looking quite odd and why is little miss not looking all too happy about it?
It's simple really, I work from home due to COVID my wifes got a busy work schedule and our lives are pretty much reversed from the traditional mum is at home with the kids. My wife still does a heck of alot and probably still more than me. I don't know how these things work out but I tend to work to a bit of a schedule each day. I don't always have time to get through everything so things get left behind for tomorrow. Obviously the important things are done like food, but occasionally there will be a load of washing I was supposed to do and it slipped my mind.
So today I sat down with little miss to do some more learning of numbers, counting and basic maths which no doubt she is probably better than me at. (This is where you're going to see why things fall off the to do list)
As we gathered our numbers and checked that they were all there we met an unfortunate and unexpected twist in our set up. We were missing the number 10!
I put the number board aside and started looking for another option to use. Anyone who has had kids or have kids knows the trouble in locating kids toys amongst their "toy room" which is just a spare room put a side that can be left as a mess. Preferably one with a door so you can just close it and no one is the wiser.
However, amongst the mess somewhere was a lost number 10, a vital piece in any counting toy. The toy didn't even come with a 0 as traditionally toys are 0 to 9 and you can make any number combinations between 0123456789 to 9876543210. There are alot of combinations! How's that for setting a password, although if this method was adopted no one would use their tech as numbers would be getting lost everywhere!
Lil Miss was adamant on using this counting toy today as it also has associated pictures that help kids visualise the number. It's been a great toy that I've used over the past year that has seen a significant increase in lil miss' ability to count.
I wasn't able to locate the missing 10 and lil miss wasn't taking it as a means to continue without it. She turned to me and said "don't worry daddy, you can make me another one". I tried to convince her to wait until we purchased a new one and we'd find something else to use to count with. But she declined.
So off to the shed dad and daughter went to start building a new 10. At this stage I had no idea what I would use but I fortunately had some old MDF left over that I could use.
I traced out the number 10 onto a piece of paper from the board made myself a paper stencil and stencilled it onto the MDF. I then fired up my dremmel that I typically use to create indigenous art with but today we were making a toy, or more so replaced a lost 10.
15 minutes later and quite a lot of internal cussing and complaining I put together a beautiful 10. It took a few goes to file it down in the right places as it didn't quite fit at the start but we were getting there.
I handed it to little miss and she was over the moon! She said to me "see daddy, you're the best!". I reached in and gave her a cuddle and thanked her. I feel bad because I didn't want to do it and tried multiple times to get out of it.
We went back to the board and lil miss wasn't too keen about it being a plain colour and wanted to paint it. She also identified that it was missing the hole in the 0. We hummed and harred about it and I was able to convince her to use it for now so we could learn to count and later on we would fix it and paint it up.
We agreed that it would be a weekend project to paint and one she can do with mum 🤣 oh mum is going to absolutely crack it at me when she gets home and hears about this without being consulted.
We spent an hour counting, matching up numbers and alternating values, I was amazed at how far she has come and how well she has learned to count. She even managed to pull me up on a few errors I had made.
But as you can see the time it took to create the number 10 so we could commence out maths class it blew out the time in my day by pushing my work back by an hour and then everything else in between. The mum gets home and I haven't got through my to do list.
But we didn't do too badly today we got a maths class, a Wood works class and we used our skills to problem solve an issue that we faced.
This is exactly the outcome from educational toys that you want, even if it stresses out dad a little much and gets him worried about not putting on a load of washing before mumma bear gets home!
But dad was hear to save the day! 🤣
What are your favourite educational toys, or what toys did you love the best as a kid that you still remember as an adult or maybe even revisit with your kids now? I'd love to hear your stories.