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Nick loved teaching Year Two. It was a fun age, where the kids were reliable about toileting, but still full of enthusiasm for the world. They hadn't succumbed to the messages that certain subjects were supposed to be boring. As a student teacher, he'd shadowed in Year Four and Year One, but he'd been thrilled to get the little ones for his first independent classroom.
It was early in the school year. He was still getting to know their personalities, and assess how much they knew. His class was full of characters, and he was very proud of how quickly he had learned all of their names. Maths started with place values and number lines, when one of his students, Rose, made a declaration as she handed in her worksheet.
“Mr. Nelson, twelve is my favourite number because it’s a super rectangle.”
“What's a super rectangle?” he asked.
“It's a number that can make lots of rectangles and ride the rays! The two ray, and three and four and six!”
“Like arrays?” he asked, still lost.
“Yeah! Zoom!” She ran away from his desk, arms extended like a plane, and he chalked it up to interesting parents.
The next day, she had an even more perplexing thing to tell him. “My second favourite number is six, because six likes to play games and I like to play games too!”
Behind her, William scoffed. “Three is the coolest because she can juggle!”
Nick is more confused than ever, when a third student chimes in. “What about lucky number seven?”
Somehow his students were speaking a language he had never heard. The words individually made sense, but together? He had no clue what they were talking about.
He forgot about it for a few days until they were doing an exercise in addition. Every time the answer was thirteen, Rose would move three of her blocks to one side while quietly saying “Whee!”
“What are you doing?” he asked, crouched next to Rose's chair.
“It's unlucky number thirteen! Which is ten plus three, but Three always flies off!”
“I've never seen a three fly before,” said Nick. “What if it were fourteen?”
“Well, he's a skater, and double seven, so he's lucky and rainbow. He doesn't fly apart. Only thirteen.”
Unable to figure out what to even ask her to solve this mystery, he just nodded and continued his rounds. Maybe one of his fellow teachers knew about this strange language of numbers.
At lunch in the staff room, Nick approached one of the Year Three teachers, Gemma. “Hey, can I ask you a slightly strange question about maths?”
“Sure! I mean, the Year Two curriculum seems simple, but some of the concepts can be tricky. Number Blocks has really been a game changer for me teaching times table.”
“What is Number Blocks?”
“Oh! It's a Ceebeebies show with, like, anthropomorphized numbers that teaches maths basics and has some really annoyingly catchy songs,” said Gemma.
Nick paused, trying to remember what his students had said about specific numbers. “Is three a juggler?”
“Oh yeah, she's a total class clown type too. Honestly one of my least favourite numbers now,” said Gemma. “But my daughter is absolutely obsessed, so we watch it all the time. The four times table was stuck in my head all week.”
“I've never heard of it before,” said Nick. “That… explains a few things.”
“I take it there's a few fans in your bunch?” asked Gemma.
“Apparently so. I guess I'm going to have to watch it to understand,” laughed Nick.
“Just wait, you, too, will be humming all the songs.”
When Nick got home later that afternoon, he pulled up the show and started at the very beginning. By the time Charlie made it home, Nick was cooking dinner and singing the theme song to himself. “One, and another one is two, and another one is three, that's me!”
Charlie wrapped his arms around Nick's waist and rested his chin on his boyfriend's shoulder. “What on earth are you singing? Is that the Number Blocks song?”
“Wait, you know Number Blocks?” asked Nick, turning to look at Charlie.
“Babysitting Olly, remember? He'd sort of outgrown it and got into his tractor phase by the time you came around.”
“Yeah, my students kept talking about numbers in confusing ways, and Gemma suggested I watch it.”
Charlie groaned. “I thought I had at least a few more years before I got those earworms again.”
“What do you mean?” asked Nick.
“You know, when we have kids.”
Nick grinned and kissed Charlie. “I love that you say ‘when.’”
“I love you, too. Even if it’s already stuck in my head again.”