Bribes, revisited

Remember when Mi'ita decided that she wanted to earn her fish by reading a book? And I tried to get her to read a science book because I felt like we weren't doing enough science? She agreed to read one science book, Creepy Crawlies and the Scientific Method: Over 100 Hands-on Science Experiments for Children, for her plastic cat set that I won't buy her, but she got exceedingly cranky when I suggested another science book for the pet fish she wanted.

Losing my patience with her, I finally pulled out two of the biggest, nastiest looking history books we have and told her she could pick one of those. She picked out the World History Encyclopedia and proceeded to read it in a day and a half. Hmmm. I hadn't actually seen all this reading, so I sat down with the book and made her "prove it to me", page by page, by asking her, so what happened with the African Empires, the Khmer, Napoleon, Charlemagne, Byzantium, etc., etc. Page by page we figured out that while she read the thing, she didn't understand it at all. Terms like abdicate and reunification and import taxes threw her. And it's political. She didn't know what communism is, or a republic, or a senate, or a siege.

So I said that she had to read it again and I would explain things that she didn't understand, or we could read it together. She chose to read it together, so we've sat down every night for about an hour and worked on a few pages of this book.

Great discussions! These discussions coupled with M&M geography, and she already knows way more than many high school students that I have taught in the social science category. I am thrilled!

(Don't tell her.)