That langugae delay - get's me every time.

[Lougle]

Me: DD1, what is 2 add 3?
DD1: Ummmm Spiderweb?

aw Lougle, yes, I've been there with the seriously surreal conversations, it does improve over time, honestly, the next few years will make a big difference.

I hope so. THe thing is, she was so chuffed with her answer. So I ended up saying "yes, DD, well done "

So then of course she wanted to carry on.

Me: What is 1 add 3?
Her: Ummm, elephant?

She counts so convincingly. But she really doesn't have a clue.

Yes, it's hard, whenever we go anywhere DD shouts "go and see the dog" "go and see the tiger"...

btw they don't do even simple sums like that until year 1 (well in DS's school anyway)- so I wouldn't worry about her not getting it yet.

Oh I know, totalchaos, I was mucking around really. But I expected a vaguely numerical answer

She is a great 'counter'. Can count up to 17/18 by rote. She can count the number of fingers you have. How many tomatoes she's got, etc. Although her correspondance is a bit hit & miss, and sometimes you get 15 fingers, IYSWIM.

But, for some reason, I think she has got it into her head that whenever a question starts "What is...." the answer will be an animal.

I think it is because we have been playing a guessing game by describing animals. "What has two eyes, a great big tail..."

So, for now, she hears "What is" and starts thinking of animals.

lol try one more and one less instead, that's the type of language you can use to help them understand adding up...although spider web sounds like a much more fun answer then 5

Good for thinking out of the box I'd say
I'd too say try with counters or something else she can manipulate/touch - if that's any consolation DS counts into the hundreds but we're still struggling with 'few' and 'many', and 'bigger/biggest' (sigh)