Once I got to school and started learning in a structured fashion, most of the first semester's assignments were like that as well. "Write a program that will solve arithmetic problems." "Write a program that will check spelling in a given file." "Write a program that counts the number of XYZ."

I think most of the respondents have the right idea - give her problems that are relevant to her life. Perl may not be the best language for this. Personally, I plan on starting my kids (when I have them) on Turtle-Logo or VB - languages that are graphically oriented. That way, they can write stuff that they can get immediate results out of.

Then, once s/he comes up to me and says "How can I do X?" and Perl is better, I'll introduce him/her to a more structured language, like Perl. Or, maybe, just leave them in VB for a while.

Now, this may sound like heresy, but the point is to teach good programming practice, not advance a religious belief. I learned good programming habits in PASCAL on a VAX/VMS. C was this really neat thing upper-level students used ... until I got to learn it that summer. Then, I realized it was just PASCAL with funny syntax and new operators, but allowed you a lot more leeway to make mistakes. Once I realized that every third generation language is essentially the same, I realized it didn't matter what language I wrote in, so long as it was appropriate for the task. (It just so happens that Perl is most appropriate to the types of stuff I tend to work on!) Teaching a child to code in XYZ isn't a bad plan, just cause it's XYZ. Teaching a child good programming habits and style is a good plan, regardless of language. A younger child will benefit from the easy graphical coding that VB or Turtle-Logo has. Then, let them decide when that language doesn't have enough tools. They're learning the language, not you.