Although London is very proficient at Grade 1 math, I started to do some math exercises with her back in the fall using the IXL online program. My intention was not to advance her unnecessarily but rather to stretch her brain a little to off-set the time she wants to spend on the ipad. We got into a great routine up until Christmas and then totally got off track without doing any exercises from the holiday season to now. I don’t know how she got off so lucky, lol.
So this Saturday, I mentioned to London that I would like her to do a 1/2 hour of math. This was her response, with one hand on her hip:
First, she looked at me in horror, as if I just asked her to clean the toilet.
Then she said, “When I was 6 I loved math. Things have changed, I am 7 now and don’t love it. So…” and then silence.
The “So” and then silence meant that it is not her problem but mine and implied we had to move on now that she 7.
Of course I looked at her in disbelief with the attitude demonstrated but had to laugh at the same time.
I inquired cautiously “so, now that you are 7 you don’t believe you need to do any more math?”
She said “right, things have changed now.”
I told her that although things might have changed when she is 7, there was still lots to learn and I still wanted her to do some math exercises.
She stomped off.
I needed time to figure out how I was going to still coax her to do these math exercises without making her hate them, so I backed off temporarily.
Later in the day, she proudly went to her father to show how she created her own math problems – 4 pages worth. Not only did she create all the questions on the sheets but she answered them all. Although her questions weren’t exactly the ones I wanted her to do, I was impressed by her initiative and also the creativity she showed in some of her questions. Phew, we are still moving forward in the right direction.
dreamabiglife 