Jelly Beans

Grace never ceases to amaze me. She loves to go to the library, so I take her there almost every time she comes to visit. A few weeks ago when we were there she signed up for the summer reading club. While we were waiting for the person in front of us to finish signing up, I noticed a jar of jelly beans on the desk. The children were to guess how many jelly beans were in the jar with the person closest winning a t-shirt. I told Grace to think about how many jelly beans she thought were in the jar. She took a nice, long look at it and asked me if she could hold the jar. I told her that I didn't think they would let her and asked why she wanted to. She said if she could hold the jar, she could count how many jelly beans were on the front and how many rows were across the bottom, then multiply to figure out how many were in the jar. Since she couldn't hold it, she made a random guess about how many were there. I don't know where she got the idea to multiply. But I do know that not many (then) six year olds think about multiplying or even know what it means.

I don't know if she's the winner or not. But she's a winner to me. I love the way she thinks things out. What an intelligent little girl!