Super Wednesday

The polls are closed and the results are in:  the extended Hungry clan believes the Groundhog will see his shadow tomorrow!

Yep, Sis and Bud had a fun homework assignment to poll family members about what they thought would happen tomorrow with the groundhog.  While Mama, Sis, Bud, Ma, Gommie, Goo, and I believe there will be six more weeks of winter, Pop and Gong and Aunt Banana are optimists that spring is on the way.

Thanks for helping with their homework!  Stay tuned tomorrow to see what happens.

By the way, Bud doesn't believe the groundhog can predict the weather because the prediction seems backwards (sun + shadow = winter vs. cloud - shadow = spring).  Sis, however, believes the groundhog does actually foretell the future with his shadow.  At some point, the groundhog is as accurate as our local meteorologists, so who's to say?

Our Own Tutor

I count myself fortunate to have Mama Teacher as a friend for a variety of reasons. Most recently, however, I have been grateful for her professional expertise as a first-grade teacher. See, I always have questions. "Is this developmentally appropriate?" (See how I didn't use the word "normal" there?) "How do you know the age level of a book?" And today's--"Is summer homework stupid?"

For thirty minutes, we talked on that last one. As a mom, she said yes; as a teacher, she said no. Which means she hasn't had her son do his yet either but feels immensely guilty about it (in fact, she's lost the math packet! Okay, I'm not laughing at you, Mama Teacher. I'm just glad to know teachers are like the rest of us about homework.) She had some suggestions for getting through homework. Give them a break after school and do the homework later. Divide and conquer, having Mama take one child and me the other. Or, separate them spatially or sequentially. She also breaks worksheets into thirds, using a divided file folder that flips open, and lets her son take breaks in between sections. Clever. She also assured me that as a teacher she would not judge our summer homework efforts too harshly; indeed, she admitted that homework tests the parents as much as it does the child. (I'm not sure that made me feel better, exactly.)

The other day when she visited, she even sat and read with Sis, who was thrilled to have a new listener (anyone but her moms). I picked up so many tips on how to instruct a beginning reader--how to slide through the syllables of unfamiliar words, how to suggest sounding out syllables (ooops, forgot the teacher lingo for letter groupings), how to encourage and support gently, even how to know if a book is too hard (5 finger rule: if they don't know 1-2 words on a page, it's the right level; if they don't know 3-5 words, it's too hard) . Interestingly, she said Sis is almost a purely sight word reader, meaning she just doesn't read phonetically despite that being the focus in school. We could tell that because she sees the first letter of a word and guesses based on textual and illustrated context. And once she sees a word once or twice, she usually has it memorized. (Bud, on the other hand, is almost purely a phonetic reader.) Such insights really help. Especially as I balance being a straight-A, Phi Beta Kappa, Ivy League grad with being a more laid back, well-rounded, encouraging mom.

Which is why I not half-jokingly offered to hire her as a tutor . . . so someone else has to deal with homework!!

(By the way, just when summer homework has me again considering home or unschooling, I read a quote on a blog that said they were a "life-learning family, supplementing our experiences with public school." I like it.)

How To Ruin a Beautiful Sunny Day in One Word

Homework.

Even before I had kids, I would see the district homework package in the library and be disgusted. Who makes kids do summer homework? I never had summer homework, nor did Mama, and we both did just fine. I've read articles and studies that say that homework doesn't really affect the so-called "summer learning loss." Parents that encourage, cajole, no--force--their kids to do it are the same ones providing stimulating, even educational summers that result in less loss anyway. The ones who don't, aren't, and tend to have kids that lose a month of learning. Of course, these lines often fall along class lines (though, apparently, everyone loses math skills). So, at best, I'm indifferent to summer homework; at most, I'm actually hostile to it, believing it to infringe on summer "recess." And I'm not alone in being torn.

We've been putting it off all summer. Instead, the kiddos have gone to science museums and aquariums, written and illustrated books, played Star Wars and fairyland and Robin Hood, built forts and hideouts, baked cakes and made meatloaf, played on scooters and learned to ride bicycles, played with their grandparents and their neighbors, gone to camp and the beach and the park, had restaurant meals and ice cream and picnics outside, gone swimming and slip-n-sliding, danced to their favorite music and sung around the campfire, played board games and card games and pool games and yard games, and read and been read to almost everyday.

But they hadn't done their homework. Until this morning, when we sat down to write two short book reports on books they had read themselves. (Mind you, at their age, I don't think I could even read, much less write full sentences. I was wasting time playing instead.).

Flashback to a year's worth of weekly assignments, with whining and frustration, giving up and giving in. "Do we have to do both pages?" Bud wondered. Sis ended up in tears. They don't want summer to end. They don't want school to start. I'm not sure I do either, at least from a homework front. I think I dread that part of it as much as they do, especially because I'm the one who has to make them do it (until they're old enough to be responsible for it themselves--so maybe, shouldn't schools only assign homework when that's the case?)

And so we finished up as quickly as we could and then headed outside for a game of Robin Hood and a feast of fresh nectarines and cold cherries, later baking a cake with a layer of chocolate kisses and marshmallows in the middle for extra fun. There's time enough for homework in the nine months, and 12+ years to come.

Homework Hell

The kids get a little packet of worksheets each week, with handwriting, counting, patterning, categorizing, cutting and gluing and coloring. Easy stuff.

And they complain, complain, complain. "I hate homework. It's so boring! I never like to glue. Why do we always have homework?"

I sit there, encouraging and debating. "Homework is just part of your job as a student. You need to do what the teacher says. You can do it!

Epiphany: when I'm not in the room dedicating myself to the homework cause, they seem to do it with little frustration, which I only noticed today.

So, from now on, I'll go over the directions when they need it, though it's all getting self-explanatory, familiar, and repetitive now, and otherwise occupy myself with something else nearby.

Homework

We played school today.

And Sis wanted homework.

So I made up a simple worksheet with addition problems.

Like this:

1 + 1 = ___

1 +2 = ___

1 + 3 = ___

1 + 4 = ___

1 + 5 = ___

I explained the equation, "It says one plus one equals. And there is a blank for your answer. Then it keeps going. Don't forget to put your name at the top." Sis took the worksheet and sat alone on a little chair, using the piano bench as her desk. Busy with making Bud the same worksheet, it was a little bit before I glanced over. And there she was carefully counting out the addition on her fingers and precisely copying the numerals from her ruler onto her worksheet, so she'd get the shape right. And it's so sweet because she got all but the 3 backwards (she's left-handed and I can't help but think it's a challenge for her right now).

But she was puzzled by the last problem. She got the same answer for 1 + 5 that she got for 1 + 4 and she knew that was wrong. I could see what was happening: with five fingers up on one hand and only one on the other, she kept forgetting to count her extended thumb because she would start with her pointer finger and go across the fingers from there. She did it once more incorrectly before noticing her thumb and getting it right. 6, she wrote carefully.

And then she came running over to me, face beaming, worksheet extended. I checked it and everything was right. She was so proud. And demanded another worksheet. So, I obliged:

A B _ D E _ G H _ J K _ M N _ P Q _ S T _ V W _ Y _

And she got all those right too.

But I poisoned the well on the third requested worksheet, because I made it on handwriting and was going to have them copy their first and last names, upper and lower case. Well, their last names are long, and they both decided right then and there that they were tired of homework!

Mercy, I thought I had it in the bag, because they'll be doing homework in kindergarten. And here it is, a month beforehand and I've spoiled the fun already.

And they still won't be able to write their full names on the first day.

But at least they can add!