It’s All About The Right Motivation

Sometimes I think homeschooling success is dependent on figuring out what motivates each child(without using gobs and gobs of candy!). For David, it’s competition with himself through timed trials, and recently I discovered a new motivator: getting to choose ANYTHING you want from the local dollar store. You wouldn’t believe how excited he was when I suggested this as motivation for him to read more from his readers. Every time he finishes a reader(126 pages of stories), he gets to count out $1.00 worth of coins from the coin jar(practicing money!) and choose anything he wants from the dollar store(although I told him I have veto power over anything ) Well, Wednesday morning, he got up early and finished the last 20 pages of his reader. Here are the results:

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David with his coin bag.

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The Store.

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After about 1/2 an hour of deliberation, he finally decided on this remote control car. It’s pretty funny because it’s attached to the controller by a wire that’s so short, David has to dash around the house, making sure he’s within 2 feet of the car at all times! The carpet apparently keeps the car under better control by slowing it down!

P.S. The wire got pulled out this morning, so now it’s just a push car. I told him he needs to finish the NEXT reader so we can go buy another one….I’m a shameless manipulator!