Monday, October 5, 2015

Window Math


On Sunday afternoon Mabel remembered the glass markers she had used at my house in the past. We dug them out and a few of them still worked. The windows above are along the west wall of the kitchen, which becomes the arts and crafts laboratory when Mabel is here. Once we had working window markers, Mabel decided to give me a math lesson. She stood on the kitchen step-stool and assigned herself the right-hand panel while I got the left-hand panel.

Mabel used a tablespoon measure ("big cup") and a teaspoon measure ("small cup") as receptacles for pennies. On her panel I wrote the words at the top because she couldn't reach that high, but she wrote the numerals and the lower-down words herself, and drew the dividing lines very decisively. She showed that her big cup with 4 pennies and her small cup with 1 penny made total cup of 5 pennies. Then, under Mabel's direction, I wrote on my left-hand panel that the 3 pennies she had arranged in my big cup and the 2 pennies she had arranged in my small cup ALSO made total cup of 5 pennies.

We did a little more drawing on the windows after the math lesson was over, but window-drawing was really just an interlude to warm up for the major yellow banner. Which Mabel laid out, directed, and embellished with great persistence and joy.