About Tanya
Mister John Smith is a well respected man. He lives in a small conservative town. He is married and has two sons named Joe and Jim. Joe is the elder son and helps in the family business. He is married to Bhagi who was born and raised in India. After a bachelor’s degree and some training in sports sciences, she got married. When she had a daughter, Jim picked her up and asked if the girl could be named Tanya. The family accepted this name for the new baby girl.
Tanya was the only little one in the family. She was affectionate towards everyone except for her uncle. She loved him dearly and also adored him. You will be right in saying that she was a big fan of her uncle but you would have to add that this feeling was mutual. Uncle lived in Toronto but Tanya had him full time him whenever he came home.
Tanya had one nose, one mouth, two eyes
Today, uncle held the three year old Tanya in front of a mirror to show her how pretty she was. He did more than that. He showed her that she had one nose, one mouth, two eyes, two ears, two hands, two legs and only one tummy. She loved it and giggled when he said only one tummy.
Counting to five
Later she came back to uncle, danced around him and then started playing with the fingers on her hand. When uncle did not pay any attention, she said, “You did not tell me how many fingers are on my hand.” Uncle grabbed her left hand and squeezed one of the fingers and said one and Tanya said one. Then he squeezed another finger and said two and Tanya repeated. This way Tanya learned that she had five fingers on that hand. The whole day she held her left hand up and jumped around the house saying, “I have five fingers. One, two, three, four, five. I have five fingers.”
Soon Tanya realised that uncle had counted her fingers only on one hand. She checked her other hand and found that it also had five fingers So she jumped back onto uncle’s lap.
Tanya has ten fingers
Tanya: Uncle. You said that I had five fingers but that is only on this (left) hand. I have the other hand too. That also has five fingers I just checked.
Uncle: Smart girl. I counted 5 fingers on your left hand. Now give me both your hands. One, two, three, four. five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten. You have ten fingers.
Tanya repeated the number each time when uncle said it. Then she said: So I have ten fingers, five on this hand and five on the other.
Uncle returned to Toronto but Tanya’s discoveries continued. She frequently phoned uncle to tell him about her new discoveries.
Challenge
Count the number of tires on one toy car and then on two toy cars. If you don’t like cars, count the total number of eyes on 4 dolls.
No solution provided to this challenge.
Supplementary
Count the number of people in your family.
Math Stories For You 