Update
Today we wrote sentences for three words. The only actual assignment to turn in. I also gave her thirty minutes that started when her foot stepped off the bus lol.. This convinced her to get home quicker while my son caught lovebugs the whole way home. Lol. Tonight my bf will go over the flash cards while I'm at work. Then I will do it again in the am since her test is tomorrow. She was a different child today; happy, laughing, and, smiling.. She even made up her own sentences.. For the word she she came up with...... I can do this. Made me smile just a bit..
I don't think that's too much homework. She's MAKING it too much by having a bad attitude about it. I would just tell her the sooner she straightens up and starts in on the homework the sooner she gets done..
That is way too much too soon. She is only in 1st grade. Her nights should be spent reading and pouring over books she is interested in. Homework like that doesn't make a children smarter it just makes them hate school. I would talk to your teacher ans see if something else isn't going on. My friend ignores her kindergartner's homework. She just reads together with her children. Writing in 1st grade should be in little doses.
I am looking into a Montessori education for my kids. My DS has ADHD, but is very bright and does very well in school (going into 2nd grade, reads at nearly 4th grade reading level with a 98% DRA ((diagnostic reading assessment)) ) I get so frustrated during the school year because they tell me he has problems focusing. NO! He is bored!! Out of his mind! He knows all this stuff already.
How is it different from "regular" school???
Quoting GaleJ:
Is there any chance you would, at this point, reconsider this school placement? As a life long proponent of the Montessori method of education I am appalled by this misuse of homework and abuse of your family life. The skills that this homework addresses we use to cover on a rotating basis in our Montessori Junior Elementary classroom as the warm-up for the day. The children, between the ages of five and ten did such work for just a few minutes every morning, cursive for a few minutes, vocabulary some days, math facts another, etc. Why is this work being sent home, what are they doing in class? When done at our school the children engaged with each other and helped one another and as soon as they had mastered the basic skill they no longer were required to do the exercise.
The effectiveness of homework is currently being debated but as you are discovering in your home you are being asked to be a taskmaster while allowing the school day to take over your home life and family time, a time when children learn other just as valuable lessons as well as building quality family dynamics. Our children only very occasionally took work home, usually when the child was so enthusiastic and wanted to do independent work on some project that so impassioned them they did not want to stop working on it, and only once in a great while when a child had not used their time appropriately and decided to remedy that by giving up some of their own private time. The kind of situation you are encountering with your daughter seems to me to have very few positives attached to it and enough negatives for me to seriously ask you to PLEASE stop this before your child comes to genuinely dislike learning because of it. She deserves to be gently guided by adults toward the passions of her intellect and curiosity and that should ALMOST NEVER be a dreaded chore but instead a great joy as she discovers the power of education, how to learn independently, and her place in the universe.
It doesn't have to be fun.
It helps and makes everyone's life a lot easier but it's not required of you.
She's old enough, just sit her down and explain that this is what is expected of you. You don't have to like it, but you do have to do it. As you go on in your life, there will be a lot of things you don't want to do, but you'll have to do them anyway. THis is one of them.
Tell her that she can whine and think of it as "hard and boring" or she can just do it with minimal emotion...or she can view it as an opportunity to improve her penmanship, learn new words...etc.
I have found the vocab flash cards were bogus. DS & dd are both heavy readers so that much of the list was repetitive. I quizzed them once at the beginnign to make sure they understood and then dropped it.
A lot of it is unnecessary but it's not a lot.
You're right, it takes them so long to do it, because the fight it every inch of the way.
One line that ds hates but I love is that the point of a lot of it is to build character. Now, I believe that's my job, so if the vocab they have to study seems remedial to me and there's nothing to hand in, we skip it entirely.
Quoting randomosityblog:
I don't think that's too much homework. She's MAKING it too much by having a bad attitude about it. I would just tell her the sooner she straightens up and starts in on the homework the sooner she gets done..
Maria Montessori discovered and standardized her methods in the early 1900's and throughout her life but since she wanted as many children as possible to benefit from them she never took any legal steps to protect her methods with either copyrights or patents so the first thing you need to do in seeking a Montessori school is to make sure they are certified by either AMI, Association Montessori Internationale, or AMS, American Montessori Society. That guarantees that the school properly follows her methods, uses the learning materials she designed, and has instructors who have received the appropriate training. Once you have done so then arrange for visits and observations.
Montessori is child led education, children work within designated areas and with the appropriate materials as designed by Montessori at their own pace. Their progress is monitored through conferences with their director/directress, the term used for teachers within this discipline, and they may work individually or with other children in small groups as they wish. Classes are multi age, in groups of roughly three years and so the children experience being the youngest, the middle and the oldest. Children learn in many ways including lessons, the materials, and as they work with each other together, sometimes being taught other times teaching, both of which strengthens their mastery of the subject. Classes may range from infants and toddlers through high school, my son attended through the equivalent of high school, and children educated through the Montessori method become life long learners who approach things from a different prospective, a much more universal one and one that I still see the effect of in my adult son in his life and career.
Quoting DEJavu17:I am looking into a Montessori education for my kids. My DS has ADHD, but is very bright and does very well in school (going into 2nd grade, reads at nearly 4th grade reading level with a 98% DRA ((diagnostic reading assessment)) ) I get so frustrated during the school year because they tell me he has problems focusing. NO! He is bored!! Out of his mind! He knows all this stuff already.
How is it different from "regular" school???
Quoting GaleJ:
Is there any chance you would, at this point, reconsider this school placement? As a life long proponent of the Montessori method of education I am appalled by this misuse of homework and abuse of your family life. The skills that this homework addresses we use to cover on a rotating basis in our Montessori Junior Elementary classroom as the warm-up for the day. The children, between the ages of five and ten did such work for just a few minutes every morning, cursive for a few minutes, vocabulary some days, math facts another, etc. Why is this work being sent home, what are they doing in class? When done at our school the children engaged with each other and helped one another and as soon as they had mastered the basic skill they no longer were required to do the exercise.
The effectiveness of homework is currently being debated but as you are discovering in your home you are being asked to be a taskmaster while allowing the school day to take over your home life and family time, a time when children learn other just as valuable lessons as well as building quality family dynamics. Our children only very occasionally took work home, usually when the child was so enthusiastic and wanted to do independent work on some project that so impassioned them they did not want to stop working on it, and only once in a great while when a child had not used their time appropriately and decided to remedy that by giving up some of their own private time. The kind of situation you are encountering with your daughter seems to me to have very few positives attached to it and enough negatives for me to seriously ask you to PLEASE stop this before your child comes to genuinely dislike learning because of it. She deserves to be gently guided by adults toward the passions of her intellect and curiosity and that should ALMOST NEVER be a dreaded chore but instead a great joy as she discovers the power of education, how to learn independently, and her place in the universe.
Wow thats more homework than my 2nd grader has. She usually has to read or do a paper and study spelling words but never that much.
How can I take three children to the store by myself? I have never done this but my husband says he won't go anymore.
- MissMandaz
on Aug. 22, 2012 at 7:14 PM