"Optional Challenge"

Optional Challenge

These were two very important words yesterday.  Two words I should have noticed at the top of Sophia's homework page.  Two words neither of us noticed until it was too late.  At 5:00pm everyday Sophia gets out her homework.  Usually, I can help her as I clean up the kitchen and begin to prepare dinner.  Last night, she started with her math homework.  Not her favorite.  She can do it, but not quickly.  It takes time and she is easily frustrated.  (Just like her mama!)  She started her word problem. 

It went something like this.... Tara was doing (insert some random chore) for her aunt.  Her aunt offered to pay her $1.00 for each of the 4 weeks.  Or, she could pay her one penny on day one, two pennies on day two, four pennies on day three, and so on doubling each day. 

Sophia needed to show how she would figure this out and which pay choice to take.  **Note, the sheet never really said to find the final answer, something I realized later.  So, Sophia drew out a chart for the 30 days and started doing the math.  She usually does math in her head instead of writing out the numbers.  That obviously had to change.  We had to get out a separate sheet of paper as we quickly were adding numbers in the thousands and millions.  Yikes.  She's in 2nd grade!  But I showed her how to do the big math problems one number at a time ("and carry the one" was said a lot!).

An HOUR later, she was done.  She felt awesome and couldn't wait to show her teacher how she learned how to do math into the millions.  Then, I showed her the other side of her homework, and mentioned her other two reading assignments.  Ouch, I watched her deflate right there. 

Two hours later, I had learned a very important lesson.  I will now look at the top of the page for those two very important words.  Optional Challenge.