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Toddlecounter!
Feb. 10th, 2004 06:59 pmLast night, Joshua and I read his 'counting to ten' book, after which he stunned me by, without prompting or help, counting to five on his fingers.
When you're two and you've decided to count to five on your fingers, quite apart from the cerebral challenge of counting to five and associating the sound pattern with the right number of fingers, there's also a logistics problem. While you can make a fist, you generally lack the manual dexterity to hold down fingers with the thumb. So, for example, you can't do "two" by doing a peace/victory sign.
Thus Josh counted "one" by holding out his thumb. "Two" was thumb plus index finger. "Free" was thumb, index, middle finger. Then he sort of worked his fingers around, staring in concentration at his hand (the whole ring finger/pinkie dual wiring nonsense was clearly biting him hard, and the idea of just putting down his thumb turns out to be way too sophisticated a concept -- after all, you've counted your thumb, you can't uncount it!) I expected him to give up, and was prepared to help him.
But he invented his own solution. He opened all five fingers, and crossed his pinkie over his ringfinger. "Four!" he said proudly, then uncrossed his fingers. "Five!"
Cool kid.
When you're two and you've decided to count to five on your fingers, quite apart from the cerebral challenge of counting to five and associating the sound pattern with the right number of fingers, there's also a logistics problem. While you can make a fist, you generally lack the manual dexterity to hold down fingers with the thumb. So, for example, you can't do "two" by doing a peace/victory sign.
Thus Josh counted "one" by holding out his thumb. "Two" was thumb plus index finger. "Free" was thumb, index, middle finger. Then he sort of worked his fingers around, staring in concentration at his hand (the whole ring finger/pinkie dual wiring nonsense was clearly biting him hard, and the idea of just putting down his thumb turns out to be way too sophisticated a concept -- after all, you've counted your thumb, you can't uncount it!) I expected him to give up, and was prepared to help him.
But he invented his own solution. He opened all five fingers, and crossed his pinkie over his ringfinger. "Four!" he said proudly, then uncrossed his fingers. "Five!"
Cool kid.
