Re: Why homework packets only on Mondays


"toypup" <toypup@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Sue" <sburke9368@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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week to complete it. If your child is not able to complete it in
the time
frame, then it is either too hard or too much and that is something
you will
have to address.

We've actually been able to complete it since I've had the talk with
the teacher. She helped DS ease into the routine by giving him the
homework packet on Fridays for a few weeks. His fine motor skills
have improved with practice and he enjoys homeowork now (it's a huge
difference, and an amazing turnaround considering the timeframe). I
still feel like it's a lot of work, so that is why I want to spread
the work out, so I don't feel stressed out about completing it, so I
don't have to worry about how we will do it when I work or he has
activities.

Here is our latest problem:

My son is in 3rd grade. At our school, there is a big division
between K-2 and 3-5. Once in 3rd grade, the kids are expected to be
much more responsible for themselves. They are given a planner to
write their homework assignments in, and they are responsible for
writing it, knowing what they're supposed to do, and turning it in.

But the teacher has been sending home assignments with no
instructions! The first day she sent home what appeared to be a
coloring ***! It turned out that they were supposed to write a
sentence (paragraph?) describing what was going on (it was the water
cycle), but nowhere on the *** or in the planner did it say so. And
you know, my boy is a good kid and tries hard, but there is just no
way he's going to remember oral instructions 5 hours later!

The next assignment was mapping and graphing. He brought home a blank
grid and said he was supposed to map his room. He insisted that
everything in the room should fit inside one grid square, but that
made no sense to me whatsoever. After all, his bed is probably 20
times larger than his bedside table, and takes up at least a quarter
of his room. The only thing he had to go by was one he'd done in
class that did indeed have a huge box for the room, and then tiny
little one-square things marked along the edges. Furthermore, for
some reason, he'd started marking the rows and columns with the second
row and second column. He even had the lower left square blacked out,
so it was obvious that it was something the teacher had told him to
do, but it made no sense since it meant that half of those tiny little
squares along the edge had no coordinates.

Here's the kicker. I sent e-mail to the teacher. I explained that he
was having trouble knowing what to do, and that when we tried to call
his "homework buddies" they were often as confused as he was. I said
that I wanted to make sure that he was doing what he needed to do, and
could she please make sure that there were written instructions and/or
examples? And she said no! Or rather, she said that what she was
doing already was sufficient. It seems to me that when a 42 year old
woman can look at the homework and have no idea what to do with it,
that it's a bit much to expect an 8 year old boy to know what to do.

DD is in 6th grade now, so we've been through the 3rd grade
"independence" movement before, but they never stopped giving her
homework with instructions.

Bizby


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