Stump Conner

Tonight Sammy was in charge of the FHE activity and with Conner's help he made a page of 10 math problems and printed copies for everyone. We ended up having a math-a-thon to see who could do the problems the fastest. I beat Neil by a split second but Conner wanted to be in on the fun and so we started quizzing him. Neil asked him a problem who's answer was a negative answer and he got it right. This totally threw me off guard. I asked him when he learned about negative numbers and he told me about a book his kindergarten teacher had given him this year that briefly talked about negative numbers. He had asked Neil if there were numbers less than zero and Neil explained negative numbers and Conner got it. So it became a game to stump Conner. We asked him what the answer to -12 +7, 5+-20 . . .etc and he got them all right. I was just amazed. So I came up with a problem I was sure would stump him -39-12= but he got it right all in his head. I asked him to explain how he got the answer and he couldn't. He said he just knew it. Okay what barely 6 year old understands the concept behind negative numbers. I am just amazed at him. He finally got a couple wrong when we started asking him -63+32 and larger problems. I don't want to come across as my son is all that but as his parent it is mind boggling to see what this child gets and challenging to know what next to teach him so that he has the opportunity to reach his potential. Who knows maybe he'll be doing calculus in another 5 years. If only I could work on his dancing skills. Funny story to follow later.