I was working with a child on menu making. First we both discussed what all he wants to explore in kitchen lab. We came up with menu items for the coming week. This child was writing in Tamil in his notebook and I was translating in English. We have a soft board where we display menu for people to refer. We thought it should be in English as majority of us do not know Tamil. I wrote for him on a page. I wrote all days in a column and all meals in row. After writing I gave it to him for making final copy. The template format we have for menu has meals in column and days in row.
He finished writing the menu and showed it to me. I read it for him: “On Monday we have apple as breakfast, cucumber as fruity, banana as snacks……” He said: “No! these all are fruity.” I asked him to observe both the menus. He came back after half an hour happily. He showed me how he cracked the puzzle. He started writing after matching every meal and day. He was moving his fingers along days and meals to pick the menu item on that day for that meal. At the meeting point of the fingers, he would smile to himself and enter in final copy. I enjoyed observing him working with involvement and his joy of solving the puzzle.