Nine Times Luckier

My kid found a dime at the park.  "Mama," she said later, "I'm nine times luckier than if I had found a penny."

"Is it really nine times, or is it ten?" I countered, "because ten times one is ten and a dime is ten pennies."

Still later, "Mama! I found a penny! Now I'm eleven times luckier!"

After lunch at the co-op, "I want to take the long way out so I can see if I can find some more money...I found another dime! Twenty-one times luckier!"

As always, I find this kind of conversational math interesting, mostly because math is for doing and using. This particular concept is an extremely useful one for her as she continues to focus on the size and shape of the universe. We've not done much with scale, but what we did encounter, in the form of the book Ten Times Better this previous January, made a huge difference for both of us.

There was also some discussion about the chances of finding coins when you're actively looking for them, but I don't think either of us understand probability at all yet.  Onward!