Following on from the play mais construction the day before, Toby wanted to make his blaster stronger so added another layer to it. Then he wanted to make the shape more even and turn it into a square so added more again. Suddenly we were chatting about square numbers and times tables, about how for each coloured layer we'd used 9 of the mais shapes.
Toby seems to 'get' numbers very readily, especially when he can see them in such practical terms. I love how this came up so naturally, we chatted for 5 minutes about it and the converation then floated off onto something else. If I'd set out to give him a 'lesson' on square numbers and multiplication (which at 5 year old is not something I'd have dreamed he'd be ready for) it would have been a complete disaster and I'd have bored the socks off him to boot.
