If you ask a preschooler what 1+1 is they'll point one finger on their left hand and one finger on their right hand, count them, and tell you 1+1 is 2.

Great!

Math lessons have extended beyond basic counting to addition and subtraction and I'm pretty impressed.

However, when I asked Abby the other day what 5+6 was, she said 7!

When she showed me how she came up with the sum, though, I had a good chuckle.

See, Chinese number gesturing is done with one hand. You count all the way up to 10 using one hand and the gestures from 6-10 represent the characters for those numbers. See this wiki page for a good explanation.

So, 5 digits on one hand to signify 5 + the thumb and pinkie fingers to signify the 6 = a total of 7 fingers up.

+ = 7

Q.E.D.

It's the end of Daylight Savings Time and pretty soon it will be too dark to take those evening walks. So, today, we tried to catch the last hour before the sun disappeared for a quick walk by our house.

There is a trail just out our front door, so we bundled Kayleigh up in the stroller (Abby wanted to brave the chilly weather with a sleeveless dress!) and headed out.

In less than 5 minutes we were at the top of a ridge overlooking miles and miles of land. The Rocky Mountains can also be seen at the horizon. It was a really pretty view with the orange glow of a sunset.



This trail is about 10 miles long with plenty of little side-trails (cow/goat paths) which are meant to promote exploration of remote locations.

At 5:30 PM it started to get pretty dark and we headed home. The above photo was taken just across the street from the trail head. You can see our house just down this street (our truck is parked in front there on the right).

As much as I love the fall it is always sad to lose the daylight.

Oh well, at least we get to sleep in tomorrow.