Slam Dunk School and the Value of Zero

When I chose to homeschool, I knew that there would be times when my daughter would have trouble understanding a concept and I would have trouble teaching it in a variety of ways. I knew that this would happen, but I could not have prepared.

Math has had many up and downs in the last semester. Coral's understanding of shapes and size is fantastic. She gets the concept of first, second, last without any trouble at all. She had no difficulty learning how to tell time. As for addition, she has practiced and made a lot of progress using different methods for adding including counting blocks, fingers, pictures problems, skip counting, and rote memorization.

Everything was fine and good with her progress until we had to start adding zero. As soon as zero as a number was introduced, suddenly nothing made sense any more. She couldn't add 1 + 1 anymore. Zero befuddled her and frustrated me because there was no way I could convince her that zero was "no objects" or that "nothing" existed.

I tried to demonstrate how to add zero with her fingers, with counting blocks, with pictures. I tried rote memorization, I tried every tool I had used before with zero success. She just was not able to understand the concept of zero as a number. My husband mentioned that he had had trouble with zero too until his dad had explained the value of zero.

I mulled that over for a while, a month in fact. I put addition aside for the entire month of December and instead concentrated on temperature and other science math concepts. I had decided to try adding zero after the holidays. I thought long and hard about zero all month long. I made no progress on a learning plan for Coral until December 29th--well, 30th.

I was in bed, unable to sleep because both of my kids were in my bed and I had zero space for myself. It occurred to me that I ought to learn as much as I can about the number, so I got on my phone and looked up the history of zero. Four-thirty a.m. history lessons stick with me.

In the morning, Coral and I had a history lesson and I used a completely new math concept to explain zero: strikes. I struck out five, ten, and hundred. I explained zero as a place holder, and then I put zero as a number up and showed her that zero did not get any strikes. I explained that every number has a value and then we went through many numbers and talked about their values including zero.

As suddenly as she had become confused, my daughter's understanding blossomed. Now adding zero is as easy as it seems it should be.

I too learned something about the value of zero in this whole adventure. Zero space on the bed, zero privacy, zero moments without my children interrupting, and zero regrets. I love my kids and I even love the many zeroes that having kids brings to my life. The value of zero in my life, is infinite. without the zeroes, I wouldn't have such a fulfilling life.