> Not a huge leap from there to the concept of equations, inverse operations, and solving for unknowns.
Unfortunately, for a child it typically is a huge leap.
There are certain abstractions that young children simply cannot do. The ability to do certain abstractions is distributed along a bell curve (edit: of age), and maybe your child is on the very far left of that curve, but most kids won’t be able to handle the abstractions you speak of until at least a little later.
To be fair, that “later” is definitely not 8th or 9th grade (much earlier), but it’s also not immediately after learning basic arithmetic.
Unfortunately, for a child it typically is a huge leap.
There are certain abstractions that young children simply cannot do. The ability to do certain abstractions is distributed along a bell curve (edit: of age), and maybe your child is on the very far left of that curve, but most kids won’t be able to handle the abstractions you speak of until at least a little later.
To be fair, that “later” is definitely not 8th or 9th grade (much earlier), but it’s also not immediately after learning basic arithmetic.