Children\'s Mathematics

The pet shop

Figure 8.6 Omar’s dog

Omar, 4:6, used the form to reflect on the pet he’d like (Figure 8.6). At the top he

wrote ‘£100 for a dog, £10 for a hamster’.Then he read ‘I haven’t got a dog and

my mum might be thinking about it’, adding ‘dogs cost a lot of money’. At 4 years

of age Omar understood the difference between £10 and £100 shown by his

estimate of the cost of the two animals. He also understood the financial

implications of keeping a dog.Without ‘tuning in to’ what children say, such

knowledge would be easily missed.

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