It has been the biggest, most horrible pain in the butt assignment ever. Kids with ADHD have a difficult time forming and writing new sentences, so the first night of this assignment, Alex cried for about an hour from frustration. Two sentences. This is life with an ADHD child. (Yes, Jon was gone that night. Yes, I was right there helping him and hugging him, as our therapist has instructed us.)
But Nate had a plan! He was going to write the same exact letter 23 times and just change the names. Once I squashed that plan, every single night has been a battle for Nate to come up with two nice sentences about each of his classmates. It takes a minimum of 30 minutes to complete, and contains a lot of arguing, complaining, and loss of privileges.
Finally I decided there was NO WAY IN HELL I could finish this up with Jon gone next week, so I told Jon we were going to force them to bust the rest out in one long session on Tuesday night, bribing them with candy and playing tennis. We each sat over a kid until they were done. Then we went to play tennis and it was awesome.
And..... Nate wrote my favorite letter of the bunch. One critical missing R in this letter (I made him fix it):
18 comments:
Making 1st graders do their homework makes me think of the phrase, "This is going to hurt me more than you." But, the long term gain in knowledge seems to be worth all the suffering everyone goes through during homework time.
Wow! That is a ton of work. But a very nice way to celebrate Valentine's Day and a good way for the kids to be kind to each other. But, oh my! I'd hate that assignment too!
One of the things I love about Michael's teacher this year is that the homework is nothing like this :) Seriously though, they have to complete 2 activities out of a choice of 9 (one of them usually has something to do with outdoors physical activity, which I think is great).
Well, it was a great idea (in theory...for 12 year olds). But I can't wait to hear about the little gems that Nate and Alex get on Valentine's Day!
A few years ago we were having personality issues on our hockey team, so we all had to do the same exercise (one of our players was a K teacher). It was excruciating. There was one player I didn't know anything about, and the best thing I could come up with was, "You have nice hair."
Wow-that's a buttload of work! Good call finding something to motivate them so they could get it done!
Is it bad that I would have greenlighted Nate's idea? Straightforward and simple. Ha!
I am so dreading homework. Even now, when the teachers send home pre-school things for the kids to color at home, I give them to Michelle to do with them during the day -- when I'm not there. Does this make me a terrible parent? Also, I don't remember a lot about elementary school HW, but I know for sure that by the time I was in middle school, my parents had NO CLUE what I was doing or not doing, never "helped" me with anything unless I specifically asked or needed money -- like for science fair stuff -- and somehow I managed to do the things I needed to do. So how come every parent I know these days is swamped and stressed about kids' homework? I think this is the schools' fault. Something isn't right if kids aren't being given things to do that they can actually *do.* (That being said, I think writing two sentences about each classmate is really quite cute! Even if it was a royal PITA.)
Sweet thought but...Idiotic! Sorry but this is so not age appropriate for most first grade students and especially for public school where you have such a variety of ability levels, as well as, parental ability to be as involved as this requires. You are no doubt in an upper middleclass neighborhood whose children have certain advantages, but that said there is still more ability, time, and willingness diversity than one might guess. Of course the best homework, if we need it at this level, and that is disputable, would be geared to the individual needs. I have decided that I am no longer doing or assisting first grade homework in any way this year. We have precious little time after school for free reading, card games and just normal talking.
That homework assignment is such a huge waste of time. I totally see why Nate would want to write the same letter 23 times. I would have done the same thing for sure (and probably would have let Nate do it :-). You are a much more patient Mom than I.
I would seriously have trouble completing this assignment. But motivating kids to get it done; AGH!
Aww, Nate has a crush on a girl. Wish my husband could write a note that sweet to me.
Bahahaha. Sucker.
I love Nate's original plan. That sounds like what I would have done, except for my main crush and besties.
Do you know Emily?
...maybe she is petty...
I'm just sayin'!
Oooh!
"Dear Emily,
This assignment is not much fun. Do you agree?
From Nate"
Whoa. Just reading about this assignment gave me hives. I'm glad you made it through it! This year for the first time we bought Valentines -- every past year I made the kids do some kind of craft and this year I didn't have it in me. Such a relief -- 1 hour at the table and they were all done.
I love the missing "r".
That cracks me up.
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