Fill in the number sequence. A friend sent me this puzzle that her 10-year-old was working on. I love a maths challenge when I see one, so started doodling away on a piece of paper. It took me a good while to solve and to be honest, I was shocked by how long it took me.
As a child, I was pretty good at maths. This was because my father drilled me with maths. Remember those old printers that had holes down the side (I’m showing my age), he printed out pages and pages of math questions for me to complete. He got lazy himself and printed out the answers and tore them off so he didn’t have to work them out himself ☺
Ever since school, I relied on my trusty calculator and now I can’t even do basic maths without the use of a calculator or phone.
It’s like any skill you don’t use regularly. If you don’t use it, you lose it. Many of us remember being able to recall telephone numbers. Since the dawn of mobile phones, I remember about 3 now, whereas before I remembered many more. I learnt French for many years but now it’s reduced to croissant talk only. It’s the same with speaking skills, that’s why I still regularly attend Toastmaster meetings.
What skills do you want to keep up?
Footnotes
1) Can’t work the number sequence out? Email me, I wouldn’t want to spoil it for anyone by giving the answer here ☺