Homework

[Alyssa]

Do your kids have homework? How often? What sorts of work is typical? Do you supervise or review?

[Jayne]

My goodness does Tylor have homework. He has so much some nights. he has had homework since Kindergarten. It used to be very minimal but now it is so much that he is sometimes not finished by Dinner.

I used to supervise it. I used to go over the questions with him and be right by his side but now we trust him to just go and do it. He has a desk in his room and he is responsible for his homework. If he has a question we are always there to help but we feel that at 11 he can be responsible. So far he hasn't proven us wrong. He does great. Yes I remind him about his homework and I do ask if it is finished later on in the night when I notice him playing but he has really shown us he can be responsible!!

Alyssa has Piano homework. Does that count. She has to practice 15 minutes 2 times a day, 5 days a week and she usually gets two-three color pages :lol:

[Wendy]

The only homework Abby has is her reader. She brings home a reader and once she can read it all the way through without having to sound out any words we take it back. This was hard for me to work with because by the time she has been in school all day and we get home at night she is really tired. What I started this year was having my MIL read it with her one time right after school and then we read it once while we are eating breakfast. It has work really really well. I dont make her do it at all over the weekend until once Sunday night. For her spelling work in school they work on the new words in the reader she is on so that has helped a lot in her moving through them.

Any other work I leave for the teacher. Hopefully the next school she goes to will be much like where she is now. One of the things I have heard about the public schools around her are the hours and hours of homework that the young kids come home with. I dont like that. We have enough going on during the evenings and she is tired enought from being in school all day that she doesnt need to sit for hours at night working some more. Evenings are for her activities and our family time.

[Jayne]

I agree with you on the evening time Wendy. I guess it is just re-inforcement that they send home and honestly it keeps me involved with what he is learning so to an extent I am glad they do get some homework :dunno:

[Cami]

Addison's in kindergarten.
*She gets two reading books a week (Tues and Fri, I think) so she practices reading those each day. She has a reading journal (blank notebook) that the teacher and I keep with the books so we can write down how she did with each one.
*She also has two baggies of cut out words. One baggie is "words I know" and the other is "words I'm learning." She gets 5 or so new words at a time and works until she knows them and then gets more.
*Finally, they have "words of the week" and "sounds of the week" and they are encouraged to bring in books or things they find that have the sounds and to write down words with the sounds.

She hasn't had any math homework.

[Bev]

Nope. Mason is in Junior Kindergarten (pre-kindergarten??, REAL kindy starts next year and is called Senior Kindergarten). He is learning lots of things and likes to do rhyming and what words start with. He's not interested too in reading yet and I won't push him because I want him to enjoy it not feel he has to do it.

I understand that next year he will have homework, as his cousin in SK gets homework now.

[Irish Luck]

Paddy has been at school now for 3 weeks, he has a different reader Mon-Thurs we have to record a comment on how he/we found the book, how easy/hard it was etc. Then on Friday it is library day and they get to choose a book for the weekend. He also has writing Mon-Thurs usually he has to write a letter of the alphabet ie: Ii, Jj, Kk 4 x per night (the same letter for the week) and then he has a short word also ie: me, my, am etc which he also has to write 4 x per night. I sit down with him every night and make sure that it gets done, unless he forgets to bring it home altogether (which he has done on more than one occassion :rolleyes: )

The first week of doing homework was a breeze he was so into it, now the "honeymoon" phase has worn off and he gets so tired by the time he catches the bus home. That we struggle some nights with him. The teacher is understanding though and doesn't want us to push him with it yet as he doesn't want homework to turn into a negative experience.

[Clare]

Emily is in 1st grade. This is the first year that she has had homework. It was very sporadic throughout the year, didn't start till term 2 and then only came home once or twice a week. At first it was supposed to be a reader every night and a list of words to write (Look, Cover, Write, Check), then this last term she's actually had a homework diary that has to be completed every week. Each week she has 10 words that she has to be able to spell and write properly and she has to write a sentence with each word in it. She also has to read a different book each night and has another set of 20 words that she needs to be able to read and spell before she can move onto the next list. So we went from hardly any homework to the motherload :rolleyes: She has only had literacy homework so far, nothing on maths or any other subject. Homework is Mon-Thurs only. I lightly supervise homework. She does it at the dining table while I'm cooking dinner. She writes her words and sentences and then I check to make sure they're right. I then listen to her read and do her spelling lists with her.

Harry is in kindy (pre-school) and hasn't had homework yet. He won't have any next year either, they don't do homework in Kindergarten here.