Homework to Hell (You know the tune, just switch the words!)

In that last post I tried to do an italics thing-y à la Ali Edwards, but I'm not so sure it worked for me. I probably won't be trying that again.

:)

Anyhoo, even though I had this week off, I have felt like all we've done all week is homework, and it's only Wednesday! Argggghhh. I am having a Charlie Brown moment!

ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!

Ok, now that that is out of my system, here are a few shots of those infamous homework moments from the week.

Luckily, Agustín really does enjoy his homework, for the most part. This week he got to locate coordinates on a Cartesian plane (now wasn't that from like 7th grade Advanced Algebra?! Sheesh!!!); sew a squirrel; do English assignments involving cutting from a magazine (NOT printing from the Internet mind you - teacher's orders!) pictures like hippos and giraffes (not so hard) and other expressions like "taking a shower" & "getting dressed" (hard! No magazine in its right mind would be publishing those kinds of pictures!); and lots and lots of workbook and notebook stuff. Wow. I'm tired just thinking of it, and as I already said: it's only Wednesday!

And, to top it all off, whatever big brother does, little brother must also do.

I don't know, it's like some kind of Jedi/Lego Hero Factory code or something.

No wonder I found myself staring at our bedspread this morning, itching to color in the lines.

PS. Yes, I know that the previous picture is not rotated. It is a Blogger issue that has been pestering me for years - the last picture imported to my computer will never show up rotated on Blogger. We'll come back to it and fix it, no worries. I hope it doesn't bother you as much as it bothers me. :)

Homework time

This is what nights have been looking like around here. Nicolas, doing his homework. Grandpa Dan doing his.

Shark attack!

Agustin getting ready for his shark presentation tomorrow. He will be presenting with his Daddy, and will be presenting the following sharks:

• Blue sharks
• Tiger sharks
• Galapagos sharks
• Whale sharks
• Great white sharks
• Hammerhead sharks

He will also inform his classmates that sharks need to be moving to breathe, so they do not sleep for long periods of time. They date back before the dinosaurs (450 million years ago) and have advanced sight and hearing. They can see in the dark. They do not have bones, but cartilage, the type of "bone" you find in your ears and tip of your nose.

This is what he needs to remember. Then he will give each classmate a picture of hammerhead sharks to color, and gummy sharks for everyone!

Homework

Homework. It is the bane of my existence. Well, Agustin's. Every day he comes home and has 2-3 assignments. For a six-year-old, I would expect assignments of 10-15 minutes, a total of no more than 20 minutes of homework a night (this is based on completely unscientific and unfounded evidence, pure opinion just by watching how long he can actually make it, and 20 minutes is even pushing it a bit). But, no. He will sometimes work for over an hour on his assignments. It is just too much, in my opinion, and while I try not to say anything to him, I really worry that homework is making him hate school (and I have seen this over and over in schools across the country). I am not against it, at all, but it should be meaningful and age appropriate, something fun that encourages the kids, not busy work.

My two cents!

(And you know it's bad when I realize I already have a "homework" tag!)

On the Merits of the Marshmallow

What is it about marshmallows? they seem to have an unexplicable lure for the members in my family, and father and sons together will literally drool for a small bowl of mini marshmallows. Every time my family comes to visit they are expected asked to bring a bag.

After school snack? Marshmallows. Hungry for supper? Need a marshmallow fix first. Why are the kids bouncing off the walls? Why, marshmallows, of course!!!!

In other news, yes, I forgot to upload the picture yesterday. We got back from playgroup rather late and by the time supper was made and kids eaten and in pajamas, there was no time for anything else. Agustin didn't have time for homework, either, and I'm sure the teacher won't be happy with us today. His homework is too long, some days, and I just can't make him do it when he's sleepy or crabby. Thirty minutes of copying a huge sheet of the letter Ss is too much for a four-year-old, especially when he's been in school all morning! I am just against this whole excessive homework idea, and I can see that this is going to be an uphill battle for me as the kids go through school.

Weather? Cold. Not as cold as MN, but downright too chilly not to have heat in the houses and at work. Add a co-worker who refuses to close the window, and you've got one ex-Minnesotan with frozen fingers having to type everything twice because her fingers aren't working right.

I suppose minus 5 is worse, but still: WHERE IS THE SUN?!

Doing Homework Together

Sitting down with Tin to help with homework is nice. When he cooperates. Last Friday his English teacher didn't send homework, but I don't know what will happen this week! As we sit and paint, color, draw, trace, cut and glue, baby brother looks on, apparently counting down the days until he can sit and paint, color, draw, trace, cut and glue with us!

Homework for Babies

OK, he's not a baby. But he's three, only two or three years away from baby-dom. He's a boy. He's his father's son (short attention span). And he gets homework every day!
At first the assignments were fun.
Scribble on a piece of paper with different colored pencils.

Scrunch up paper and glue it above the line.

Complete the drawings.

Paint all over the page.

Cut out things that are yellow and paste them to the page.


But little by little they are getting harder and longer.
Color the smaller circles blue and decorate the large circle however you want.


But the worst has been the English homework - it is only sent on Fridays but last Friday it was so long (about 8 pages - 2 parts of the body on each page - Agustin had to cut out the parts of the body and glue them under the corresponding word). Of course, he can't read, so who do you think gets stuck doing his homework?

Actually, I don't really do his homework. Most Ecuadorian parents do - which, obviously, makes no sense at all, although when faced with battling your 3-year-old to sit down for an hour and cut out miniature eyes from magazines and glue them onto a piece of paper, or just doing it yourself in five minutes - the choice doesn't always seem so black and white.

So, I am the mean mom who makes him do his own homework, the way he interprets it. Which means sometimes he goes out of the lines. Sometimes he glues things over the words. Sometimes his lines are far from straight.

So I get notes from his teacher: "I said to tear the paper and glue it, not rip it."

Was it a problem with my translation of trozar? Maybe not - after asking various people what trozar meant, I got such a variety of interpretations that I no longer knew what the teacher meant. He only got one star on that assignment, presumably because I didn't do it for him.

More than once people have hinted that maybe, if I want him to get good grades and be a good student, I should do the homework myself.

I can't even dignify that statement with an answer!