He Counted to 100!

We were sitting at the table having our dinner this evening and Z1 decided to count to 100. He asked me to help him when he got stuck. I was expecting that when he got to 40, he'd start to falter but no, he just kept right on to 50 then 60 then 70 then 80 then 90 then 100!!!! I was so excited and proud and so was he. What a pleasant surprise! His push to count to 100 was totally self-motivated. I pushed him to get to 30 but he basically did the rest. I have a 100s chart that I placed on his wall underneath his calendar and he regularly sits there and counts. His abacus that I got for his birthday that he had religiously neglected? All of a sudden, he's counting to 100 with it. I'm really thrilled and working on figuring out the next step.

Today, we carved pumpkins which was a lot fun but I see that his fine motor skills are still developing. I hope to find ways to help him along so that way he can start to write to 100 too. Then, I will look into him taking classes to learn the soroban method of arithmetic (I found this company that offers to teach it and went in for a demonstration--I was very impressed).