Two, Four, Six, Eight,…

Dude(tte).  Mark is learning to skip count!

Holly and I were rehashing the week, the day, our lives, etc: you know what couples do on the weekends when they get back together after some time apart, realigning their life stories so they stay on the same page when we were interrupted:

Luke yelled out from the pantry, “I can’t get down!”

Mark took off running for the pantry yelling, “I’ll get you down, Luke! I’ll get you down”

Muffled noises followed with a couple of loud bangs, then some giggles.

Mark: “Watch this Luke, I can get up and back down. Twice! Watch”  A couple of loud bangs followed, then some more laughing…

Mark: “Two, Four, Six, Eight, Ten, Twelve! Hah!”

Holly: “Mark, where did you learn that?”

Mark yelled back, “That’s what is says right here on the washer!”

Cool.  Skip counting is a prerequisite to many later math skills.

After the excitement died down, during the bedtime snack, I was able to quiz him and he was able to get to 16, correctly with no assistance, but then skipped to 19.  I’s too bad that the teens are so different sounding than the rest of the deciles; the units, twenties, thirties, forties, etc., all end with the number units digit number, but the teens all end in ‘teen.’  Why is that, I wonder?  Did we used to use base 20 like Inupiaq, Yupik, and other Circumpolar natives?