Twenty Eleven parent and child

I installed the twenty eleven parent theme and child themes. I’ve done all my tweaking in the child theme. I’m satisfied with everything but the number of posts shown on the home page. I want a max of 5 posts, and I want the date of the post to show below the title. I have written 2. Only 1 shows up on the home page and there is no publish date. I wrote the posts in the child theme. Should I be writing and publishing my posts in the parent instead of the child? Sorry for sounding like a simpleton, but I am new at this.