I recently discovered this twig-themed décor in a local furniture store—and was instantly transported back to Miss Bitz’s second grade classroom, where I sat in the very back of the right-most row of desks.
Our arithmetic workbook was chock-full of drawn bundles of 10 sticks and loose sticks. Everywhere you looked: bundles of 10 sticks! I realize now that it was an attempt to help me visualize the concept of tens and ones in addition. Two bundles of 10 sticks plus 3 individual sticks = a total of 23 sticks. But it sure confused me! Why are we looking at sticks? (Just tell me what numbers you want added!) I did much better when a number line was introduced.
But two other memories of sticks also surfaced: the first from my dad, who told me that as a little kid, his grandfather asked him to pick up all the sticks in the yard with two or more ends. It didn’t take the little obedient lad long: “But Pappy!”
And, when our daughter appeared in a college play, we drove out to her campus to attend the production. But we didn’t have the cash to buy a pricey bouquet of fresh-cut flowers for the ingenue. We did, however, have an abundance of free-range sticks in the backyard—and the wherewithal to present her with a beautifully arranged bundle of crisply pruned maple and willow twigs.
But now! Such trendy bundles command a ridiculous sum for the fashion-conscious homeowner! And I still can’t understand that kind of cents!