IM3 Summer Work Instructions
Dear student,
Welcome to your summer work assignment. Eric Olson, a beloved teacher of mathematics at Pingree School, introduced the math department to Khan Academy last year. The Khan Academy website includes a “practice” feature that allows students to practice and test their mathematical skills, from basic addition to topics in Calculus. For your summer work assignment, we will ask you to practice several of the skills available on this comprehensive site.
Before you dive in, there are a couple of things you need to know.
1. You should expect to spend at least 10 – 12 hours on the summer work assignment. We strongly recommend that you work through the exercises gradually rather than trying to cram them all in at the end of the summer.
2. The majority of the skills we will ask you to practice on the Khan Academy site will be review for you. The exercises are not designed to teach you a significant amount of new material. Rather, they are intended to get your foundational skills up to speed before the school year begins. At the same time, you should not panic if a skill feels unfamiliar. Whenever you have trouble, the Khan Academy site provides you with a hint and/or the opportunity to watch a tutorial video on the skill in question.
3. You may use a calculator when practicing the skills we have selected. However, in many cases, you will find that you need paper and a pencil to work the problems.
4. If you have any questions about the summer work assignment, please feel free to contact me via email
Christina Kennedy (Math Department Chair):
Are you ready to get started?
Instructions for accessing the summer work
1. Go to
2. Click on “Login” in the top right hand corner of the screen.
3. You will need to create a user account to access the exercises using either Google mail (gmail) or Facebook. Simply click on the appropriate link and enter your email address and password. You will use this address and password to login to Khan Academy each time you visit the site.
4. Click on “practice”.
5. Before you actually begin practicing, you need to select the appropriate “coach”. In the top right hand corner of the screen, you will see your username. Put the cursor over your username and a pull down menu will appear. Click on “visit profile.” A column of options will then show up on the left side of the page. The last entry in the column reads “coaches”. Click on “coaches”. Where it reads “Add a coach” type in the following Coach id:
6. Go back to “practice”. Now it is time to get started!
7. Print out the “IM3 Summer Work Checklist.”
8. Decide which skill you want to work on and type the skill name (title) into the box at the top left that reads (in light gray type): “Start typing the name of the challenge or skill to find it.”
9. Practice the skill until you receive the following message: “Nice work! You’re ready to move on.” Then, click on “Pick a new skill to work on” and type in the next skill you would like to practice.
10. If you need help with a question, you have two options. You can click on “I’d like a hint” or you can click on “Stuck? Watch a video.”
11. When you complete a skill, please make sure to check it off on the hard copy of your “IM3 Summer Work Checklist.” You will turn the “checklist” into your teacher on the first day of school. Your teacher will also check your account on Khan Academy to verify that all of the exercises were completed, and this will count as your first course grade of the year.
12. At any point, you can “logout” by placing the cursor over your username (top right hand corner) and clicking “Logout”. When you login again, you will simply pick up from where you left off.
GOOD LUCK and HAVE FUN!