Dan does math

About half an hour ago, Dan came to me with a handful of nickels, and told me he'd just counted his nickels and got all the way to 400!

Wow! 400? Can you show me how you counted that?

He spread his nickels out on the desk, and started counting them one by one into his hand.... 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, all the way up to 100. Then he paused a moment, and looked at me. He asked, "what comes next?"

One hundred and five -- a dollar five when you're counting money.

Okay. One dollar five, one dollar ten, one dollar fifteen, all the way up to one dollar forty. He just beamed, and I wondered when Dan learned to count by 5's.

Minutes later, he came running with two quarters. "Will gave me 50 cents to put with my other money! How much do I have now?"

Let's see - you have $1.40, add 25 cents you have a dollar sixty-five, twenty-five more makes a dollar ninety. If you go get that dime off the counter in front of the microwave, how much will you have then?

Immediate reply. "Two dollars!" and off he ran.

I asked Will just a moment ago if he'd shown Dan how to count his nickels. He answered, "no, I gave him two quarters I didn't need, but I didn't help him count anything."

Dan knows how to count by fives, and that a dollar ninety plus one dime is two dollars!