Working the Homework

I'm sure this is old news for many of you but just the same, I'll recap:

Kelton has been swimming in homework. Drowning, actually.

It has grown over the months to be intense with 20 minutes mandatory reading a day and what was up to an hour of writing (because he does need extra support for penmanship but an hour? Overkill - and making us both miserable.). I have all but cut out the writing part and instead we are focusing for about 15 minutes a day on the correct (and neat) letter formation. God bless his little heart but man did he have awful penmanship. His imagination for stories is outstanding but trying to figure out what he wrote? Forget it!

He's doing so much better now but it hasn't been without a struggle and price. It was really doing a number on the time he and I spent together - not to mention impacting family time for Kaylen as well. It got pretty ugly so I emailed his teacher and she revised the writing plan for him....only it increased his writing time. So - I made the decision to go about it in a more productive way; using less time and the basics of writing that I learned as a child. None of this fancy D'Nealian stuff which is great and all but when you don't have a handle on the basic letter shapes in a readable format, it just adds to the chaos. (D'Nealian is the "adopted" style of our school district. as well as many others in the country.)

And it's working. We have cut homework down from two hours a day (which was insane and waaaaaay too much!) to 20 minutes in the morning and 15 in the evening. We are much happier.

At least - until Friday's homework packet came home.

HOLY MOLY!

Nine pages of writing (and I'm taking "writing" not just complete the word or circle the word) and four pages of math. That, my friends, is THIRTEEN pages of homework.

Insane.

And more insane? It took three hours to accomplish. That's right - half a school day to do the weekend homework. Even if that homework was broken down over 7 days that would have been roughly 25 minutes a day. Over 5 days would have been approx. 35 minutes a day. Plus the 20 minutes of reading and 15 minutes of writing.

It doesn't take a math major to know this is too much for a 6 year old. And I'm not going to lie - way too much for me.

I was less than happy. Waaaaay less than happy. I wrote a message on a post it note and stuck it on the top paper in his homework file that went back to school today. The note said "This took 3 hours to complete. It is too much!" (Passive-aggressive, much? Yes, thanks for asking.)

This afternoon when Kelton arrived home he presented me with a post-it note from his teacher. It said:

"Kelton should've gotten only one handwriting/reading page instead of six. The "Wonder Stories" were stapled to his reading page by accident. I apologize for the inconvenience. Mrs. T"

That's right people. Remind me to thank the teacher's aide next time I see her. Those 6 pages are what took the most amount of time to do and, hands down, caused the most frustration for all of us.

I know it was just a mistake and yet - it doesn't make it feel any better. It doesn't give us back the time. It doesn't erase the frustration. It doesn't give us back the sunny early part of the day when we could have been out and about playing or going for a bike ride. It doesn't give us back the family time we missed and it doesn't give Kaylen back time when she wasn't hushed and pushed from the room so that we could get the homework done.

Inconvenience? Yeah - I'll say. :(

On the up side, Kelton is really hoping this has earned him a few weeks of no writing assignments. I didn't want to dash his hope because it's exactly what I am hoping for as well. It seems like we earned it. :)