Remember being in kindergarten and you would have to connect the dots? Connecting the dots 1,2,3,4 …. would form some picture. “Oh look it’s a Jack Rabbit.” Some pictures you really didn’t need to connect the dots, they were very obvious. You could just look at it and instantly know “it’s a jack rabbit.” But some, you couldn’t tell. You’d have to start connecting the dots to figure out what it was. There is a shape, but it’s on this branch with leaves around it. It is a monkey? is it a koala bear? Stressful for a 4 year old. But you’d start connecting the dots 1,2,3,4. “Ahhh it’s a koala bear.” Sometimes the picture is very obvious, but they try to fool you. “I know it’s an elephant.” But the dots are not sequential. “hmmmm what’s going on?”. Oh wait I see it’s 2,4,6,8 ….
Then you hit grade 1 and the connecting the dots stop. You move on to more complex things. Colour all the shapes that have 4 sides Orange and all the ones that have 3 sides blue for example. You never do connect the dots again. As an adult, I’ve recently had re-enforced the fact that all those “connect the dot” lessons in Kindergarten are very important in life. Might even be one of the most important lessons. Maybe even more important then addition. They should really place more emphasis on it. Review it once each year till you hit University. Maybe even review it in University.