ARGGGHHHH!!!!! School vent!

[BernardandMissBianca]

I am sooooo over homework!!!!!!!

That school has my kids for 35 hours a week, that is a full time job people!!! Why do I get hours upon hours of homework on top of that!?!?!?!? it is currently 9:14 pm, we have been doing homework since 4:00, enough is enough!

And we are talking 3rd grade here.

I need a

Oh and to top it all off my TIVO died!!!!!

 

[aroyer]

OH MY HOLY COW!!! 5 hours of homework for a 3rd grader????!!!!! That's just absolutely absurd. And for your TIVO!

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

yep, DS6 (2nd grade) had almost 3. I.have.had.enough!

And DS12 has his first at home long term "project" aka busy work. I refuse to do it. I will not spend my nights, weekends, and money doing projects that get tossed into landfills 2 days later.

 

[aroyer]

That's just out of control! DD is in 3rd and she works maybe an 1.5 a night. That's on a busy night, usually it's less than an hour. Last year she had the most on Monday evening and then only 15 minutes of reading the rest of the week. I am still just flabbergasted.

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

the hand book said up to 30 minutes for 2nd grade and 30-45 minutes for 3rd grade. 6-8 is 30 - 120 minutes across all subjects.

DS6 and 7 both have 20 minutes of reading and DS7 has 15 minutes of math facts per might, plus 30-45 more of homework????
Needless to say I don't push my kids to read, they do it when they want to. DH and I are big readers and we lead by example, however I will not force my kids to read. They will turn it off just like I did. I managed to BS my way through every reading assignment in High School, I never opened a book.
And the math, forget it. The boys do math differently then everyone else and that is a huge battle with this school. I pulled DS12 out of school (same teacher as DS7 has this year) because he did math wrong. Hello he came up with the same answer who cares how he got there as long as he can show the work!

If DS12 has 120 minutes a night that's 45 hours a week he is "working", that's 5 hours of overtime a week. It's nuts! And they get 20 minutes for lunch, no recess, and no study halls this year, they "wasted" the 50 minutes. NOT!

 

[aroyer]

Wow! No wonder you are fed up- this is just absolutely crazy! I agree with the forcing the kids to read for 20 minutes a night. I feel like it's having the opposite effect on the kids. DD loves to read but she hates being forced to although she wants the A+. This year she doesn't have a set amount each day, she has to read a certain amount per week to earn an A+, A, A-, etc. So therefore it is up to her as to how she wants to split it up. Last week it was a huge battle, but I think it had something to do with my BIL and SIL being here (they evacuated from Hurricane Ike to here).

 

[Kim1964]

My 7th grader doesn't even have that much homework!

 

[AlexWyattMommy]

So far we have been pretty lucky in the homework department this year.
My Fifth grader already finished one "busy" assignment early and just finished his second last night that is due today. He gets a packet on Monday due Friday for social studies, vocab words for a test on Thursday [when he studies is up to him], math every night, 20 minutes of reading everynight. Not sure when they will throw in the science projects.

First grader has math every night & 20 minutes of reading. His busy work assignments will start later.

If the work they are assigning is that "much", it's not right. How long it takes to do work can vary greatly among children. If the volume is that it cannot be done in the time frame given in your handbook, I'd be complaining left and right.

No recess? Dang, that's just mean.

 

[Lisa]

Five hours of homework for a third grader. I think not. How about he does what he can in the time frame specified in the school approved and sanctioned handbook, turn in what he did and what he couldn't finish in that timeframe with a copy of that page of the handbook.

 

[party of 3]

that is just plain wrong.

 

[WDWMom]

I totally agree that it is too much. Around here our kids usually had about 15 minutes of homework each night in elementary school. The boys are now in middle school and it varies. Almost every night they have math and occassionally something else. Very rarely more that 2 subjects. DD is a senior and 2 fluff classes, still only has about 1/2 of homework and maybe studies for Spanish (vocab).

Buffy, I understand it gets to be too much with math facts, reading, and busy homework. If your boys are good at math, I'd forget it. Same with the reading, if they like to do it, encourage them but don't make them do it. I think I'd be going to the teacher and letting him/her know and if you are not happy on to the principal and then the superintendent.

 

[rlovew]

That is a lot of homework- I hated homework as a teacher. Students who got everything and didn't need extra practice or ones with parents who could help did it and the ones who didn't have support at home and had trouble wouldn't do it.

I only had 3 assignments each night. One page of math (normally it was our review page with no more than 10 problems- generally it had 5 or less). 15-20 minutes of reading (I didn't police this but if they didn't read at home they would have enough done by the end of the week for our bigger recess time). 1 spelling assignment- I gave a list of 20 possible assignments and they would have to do 4-5 each week, the assignments had different point values from 15 for drawing a picture with the words to 45 for writing a story with the words. Students could choose which ones they wanted to do and the number of points handed in by Friday was their grade up to 100. They could do them any time during the week they wanted so if they knew they were going to have a busy week they could do them earlier or later if one day was a problem. They were also allowed to take home their spelling list on the Friday before the week if they wanted to do it over the weekend when they had no homework.

Rebecca

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

I have been the route of the teachers and the principal, that man is a waste of air and space.
I wrote nice long notes to the school, teachers, admin, and Board of Ed about how the homework will be done in my house this year. I will not do long term projects, period.

DS12 did the preliminary work for that poster last night, I gave him 20 minutes. Now he was absent for 2 days, sore throat and fever, so I'm not sure what was assigned for class and what was for home so I made him work on it.

Tonight we do 20 minutes plus reading, then I'm done. Looks like I will be attending the BOE meetings, again. I was really hoping for a better year. Now y'all know why I want to get the heck out of Blink!!!

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

That is a lot of homework- I hated homework as a teacher. Students who got everything and didn't need extra practice or ones with parents who could help did it and the ones who didn't have support at home and had trouble wouldn't do it.

I only had 3 assignments each night. One page of math (normally it was our review page with no more than 10 problems- generally it had 5 or less). 15-20 minutes of reading (I didn't police this but if they didn't read at home they would have enough done by the end of the week for our bigger recess time). 1 spelling assignment- I gave a list of 20 possible assignments and they would have to do 4-5 each week, the assignments had different point values from 15 for drawing a picture with the words to 45 for writing a story with the words. Students could choose which ones they wanted to do and the number of points handed in by Friday was their grade up to 100. They could do them any time during the week they wanted so if they knew they were going to have a busy week they could do them earlier or later if one day was a problem. They were also allowed to take home their spelling list on the Friday before the week if they wanted to do it over the weekend when they had no homework.

Rebecca

see I like that, choices.

I asked the teachers for a weekly syllabus last year, guess what thee response was?

Oh we don't know what we are assigning that far in advance. HUH??????

 

[rlovew]

see I like that, choices.

I asked the teachers for a weekly syllabus last year, guess what thee response was?

Oh we don't know what we are assigning that far in advance. HUH??????

That was in my welcome to school packet- the only other thing they might have for math (and if they forgot their worksheet they could always do instead) was writing out 3 times each the fact they were on in our daily multiplication family (if they were on the 3s then 3x___ through 12 three times).

Homework shouldn't be whatever you can't finish in school. I did occasionally have projects like posters but I gave a very specific rubric and gave students some time to work in class as well as examples. Those posters went on my walls and the best of them became samples for future years. I think we had 3 units for science with 1 poster each. A few units had extra credit projects that were completely optional but most units had word or power point projects that we did in school.

Rebecca

 

[MazdaUK]

DS(14) is getting more homework now as he's started his GCSE syllabus, but its rarely more the an hour a night - my niece (13) gets 3 hours because she goes to a grammar (selective) school. DS(8) gets, I think, more h/w than his brother - he is supposed to read every day (but he does get to choose his own book from school, so it helps) plus he gets literacy on a Thursday and maths n Friday (both to be done over the w/e) plus he's now getting French as well, sometimes as literacy, sometimes as numeracy. Plus other "competitions" (design a cover for the school calendar, design a poster for the Christmas Bazaar, make a healthy eating poster) come home frome time to time - I leave it up to him whether he does it.

But I HATE homework -both boys can get worked up if they don't understand it (because the grammar is not always what it should be) - and I just want to scrap

 

[nicurn]

dang, kate doesn't get that much and she's in 8th grade! good luck! maggie

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

Oh yeah, and I neglected to tell you they took library away! They turned that into a media room aka the computer class, which they had 2 empty rooms upstairs with computers in it. So they booted the librarian out, put her in a classroom as an aide so she quit, she'd been the librarian for almost 20 years. The teachers don't have time to take the kids to library.

I found all this out at the PTO meeting!

Double huh????


As for projects, I wouldn't mind them if the kids actually learned something! When I was there, 7th and 8th grade had to build a diorama of a room in an old house. Adobe, Victorian, Sod houses, etc. We work on it all year, studied the region our house was in, the whole 9 yards. And every Friday in Social Studies we worked on our room. They were like Doll house scale. It was awesome, I wish I still had my room but we pitched when I got married. I can remember to this day what my room looked like, down to the detail on the dresser. We made every piece of furniture by hand.

DS12's project last year, make a time capsule for the Song We didn't Start the Fire, each kid got a section of the song.
Have you ever read the lyrics to that song? 6th graders don't need to be doing reports on Sex, cocaine, and suicide. The kid that got suicide had to be pulled out of school because he threatened to kill himself in front of the class.

 

[WDWMom]

When DS 13 was in 5th grade the had something like 5 major projects that they had to do. Only 2 of them had any academic merit that I could find. The worst was when he had to made a 3D house out of squares. He came home with about 25 sheets of paper with 2 squares on each page. He was supposed to cut, fold and tape the squares together. Then made the house 3D. It took about 150 squares (75 sheets of paper X 30 kids). All this at home. It took me, DH, DD and DS to cut, fold and tape several nights. I remember asking DS what he was learning in school that this was for and he didn't know. I asked him if he learned anything from and said something like - I learned I don't like to make squares from paper

So glad DS12 did get that teacher for 5th grade

 

[PrincessNancy96]

Wow! Our elem. teachers tell us if there is more than 30 minutes of homework and 20 minutes of reading than that is tooo much!!!

Even my MS/HS'er has less than 2 hours... that is just nuts!!!

What are they doing at school???