Did you know that a Three Dog Night refers to a night so cold that you need three dogs in the bed to keep you warm?  It comes from Australian Aboriginal custom of keeping dogs in the bed in order to stay warm.

Who knew?

I was thinking that it would be a really great idea to explore expressions that are used in everyday life that are also mathematical.

This winter, when discussing the weather, rather than having children simply say, “It is cold,” or “It is windy” you could teach them the expression Three Dog Night to describe a really, really cold night.  Using variations of this, a cold night might be a One Dog Night, and a really cold night might be a Two Dog Night.  These gradations of cold and relativity will support the idea that there are measures of cold – there is cold, colder, and coldest.

It might be nice to provide a visual representation of this concept as well.  You could use stuffed dogs and the children can pick one, two, or three dogs to represent the coldness (they may even choose a No Dog Night if it ever warms up).  If you use a weather chart, you could use dog stickers and the children can put one, two, or three dogs to represent the weather.

Let us know how it goes.  Take a picture and I will post it:)

This is a great place for adults to use “prompting” techniques to help children remember what yesterday was like.  You can ask them outright, “Is it hotter or colder than yesterday?” If they can’t really remember, prompt them with reminders such as, “Did you wear a winter coat yesterday?  Did you need a hat and gloves?”  Prompting the memory with clues is one good way for children to explore the relative nature of the weather.

Take a look at this video clip.

You can see very clearly that the child knows that it is sunny- but did you notice “how sunny” it is?  It is very sunny- it may be the sunniest day of the week.  It is so sunny that the shades are drawn because the sun is shining so brightly. The sunshine of that day is relative to the sunshine the day before and the day after.  It is within these relationships that mathematical concepts belong. Be sure to encourage children to learn suffixes that are relative, such as er, and est endings on the adjectives they are already using.