Red and Yellow

I have twelve counters. I have both red and yellow counters. I have two more red than yellow. How many of each do I have?

shaggy hair gets out his manipulative dinosaur pieces. “These ones will be the red ones, Mr. Murray” pointing to a pile of all sorts of colours, “and these the yellows”.

alright, but, what else might we want to do? Is there another way we use the dinos?

“ummmm,” he thinks for a moment. “There are lots of yellows and reds, should I use the real colours?”

I don’t know, does that sound like a good idea to you?

He shrugs his shoulders and organizes the pieces.

Another girl comes up to the table, picks up the sheet of paper with the Question of the Week is written on.

“can I try?”

you sure can

She takes a pile of red and yellow and counts out twelve. She shows six of each colour and goes back to the question.

it was one of the most interesting things I’ve ever watched. I could see the cogs turning in her head as she looked from the paper to the piles of six and back again.

“I got it Mr. Murray” says Shaggy “it’s fourteen”.

Are you sure?

He shrugs his shoulders and goes back to work. The other girl changes the piles in front of her. She takes two red away and replaces them with two yellow. She counts them up: eight red, four yellow. She furrows her brow and replaces the reds and removes the yellows; two piles of six again.

Turning, turning, turning

Then suddenly her face lights up. Her eyes widen, hands shake momentarily.

Something clicks

I could almost cry

She moves her pieces and looks up with a smile. “Is it right, Mr. Murray?”

What do you think?

She smirks and nods ‘yes’.

Then write it down and put it in the answer box. We’ll check to see if it’s correct later today

“I’m pretty sure the answer’s 14, Mr. Murray,” Says Shaggy.