Preschool Math Concepts

Sam has been learning math at his new preschool. Up until a few weeks ago he was only learning the concepts of zero through ten. (I love that they start with zero! Yes, Melanie, I'm a dork.) He must have graduated to larger numbers recently. They have a wooden board which has little pieces (like Scrabble tiles) with numbers 1 to 100. The kids have to put the numbers in order. He currently isn't doing any work (that I'm aware of) with numbers larger than 100. So one day he comes home and announces ...

One hundred is the last number.

Since I was getting dinner ready, I lazily responded ... Really?

I meant to come back to that later and talk to him about it, but of course I forgot. Then he comes home the next week and announces ....

Infinity is the last number.

Now I'm not sure who told him this, and I wasn't sure how to respond, so I once again lazily responded ... Really?

A few more days go by and infinity morphs into one-finity ...

I can count to one-finity. One, two, three, ..., twenty-eight, twenty-nine, twenty-ten, twenty-thirty, ... one hundred, one-finity.

So in addition to making dinner and getting the kids ready for bed, should we take time out from telling Sam to stop picking his nose and stop jumping on the couch to explain the concept of infinity? Or should we just keep loving the fact that he says one-finity and let him learn that concept when it is developmentally appropriate?

My other current favorites ...

bachine (machine)

jajamas (pajamas)

chocklick (chocolate)

crown (crayon)

My mom (a math teacher) let me keep saying liberry (library) and cuvvurd (cupboard) until I was older just because she thought it was cute, so maybe it's ok to keep one-finity around for a little while longer! (Though she did get upset with me when Sam asked, "Why is the moon out?" And I said, "Because it is night time.")