Focus

I’ve noticed that Sara has a hard time focusing on math. She solves one problem, gets goofy, talks, fidgets, etc. for a while then regroups and does another one only to then un-focus again. For a while I was doing math drills – how many problems can she do in 1 minute. That seemed to do the trick nicely but has lost some of it’s effectiveness; Sara needs new ways to keep her interested and focused.

Over the last couple days I’ve been baffled. We usually start our lesson with flash cards and Sara can plow through them effortlessly. Yet when we move to the workbooks that have the same equations in them, she flounders. How could that be?

This morning I had a revelation; the problem is distraction. Flash cards don’t have any other equations on them, only the one that she is supposed to solve; the workbook page has 20 other equations. My theory is that if we cover up the other equations, she can focus on the one equation at a time and not be distracted by the others. So this morning, with my trusty pocket knife I carved a prototype of the “equation focus tool.” Sara loved it and confirmed my theory that it was easier to focus on when we cover up the rest of the equations.

“it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings to search out a matter.” (Proverbs 25:2)