We switched Alice's after-school math exercise to Khan Academy this year. Its an improvement over the quizzes I was making for her and introduces her to many more styles of questioning. Khan Academy has a well organized and high quality math learning program. She took to it right away and began to prefer it for her daily exercises.
She gets incentives for her math exercises. She gets a "point" for doing her homework each day and if she does math each day she gets a random shopkin toy on Fridays. This proved to be sufficient incentive but just barely (especially on hard or long days), so in order to increase her motivation and properly communicate the value we placed on the effort, we told her that if she finished 2nd grade math, before the end of her second grade year, she should could pick out a toy at Toys-R-Us.
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Not long after, early November, she walked up to me and said:
Her: "Dad I bet you, I can finish 2nd grade math before the end of November."
Me: "What's the bet?"
Her: "One dollar."
Me: "If you take too long, you won't cry and you'll give up the dollar, for real?"
Her: "Yep." (firm look on face)Me:
Her:
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She finished 2nd grade math last night! As soon as Cristy got home we went to Toys-r-us and shopped, then we went wherever she wanted to go for dinner, her choice. She chose Which-Which :-). She was so excited and proud of herself. I don't think I'll ever forget how wonderful last night was. I loved seeing her expansive excitement. She felt proud and confident and was talking non-stop.
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She probably put about six hours into math homework this week. She was really pushing herself. I had to make her take a break on two occasions and watch a show to rest a bit. She really pushed through this week. I'm officially impressed with the tenacity and drive I saw come through
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Her: "Where's my dollar?"
Me: "Let me get it!" (smile on face)
I jumped up and quickly got her dollar; most effective dollar ever. She took her dollar and put it in her charity jar. Then we played with puppies until Cristy came home and we started celebrating.
I'll come up with a code for her to break today, time for a math break.
Next target: 3rd grade math...
