Dominic is very bad about bringing his homework home. His last report card had some bad grades on it and the note from the teacher said it was solely because of missing assignments.
Here is the solution I’m trying out: he can either show me finished assignments that he completed at school (this is what he always tells me when I ask him about homework–“I finished it at school”) or he can show me his homework and then do it… or I will give him homework of my own. And it will be more work than what he would have had assigned from the teacher, so it will be in his best interest to just bring home his real assignments.
Yesterday I printed out two math worksheets (one on fractions, one on measurements), a history worksheet, and an English worksheet. It took him over an hour and it was on-topic for what he is studying in school, so it seems like a pretty effective consequence.
The problem is that I’m doing a lot of searching for not much finding when looking for worksheets. A lot of sites seem to have one or two for free, then you can pay a membership to get more, or you can buy a downloadable thing of them, or whatever. Or the stuff I find is poor quality. I know there are free good ones out there, and since it’s not like I’m homeschooling here, just trying to whip the kiddo into shape WRT homework, I’d really rather find a free solution.
I can’t help you so much with finding worksheets, but I used to do the same thing when I was his age. The solution my mom and teacher came to was that I had had a notebook in which I wrote down all the homework I had and the teacher only had to read it over and sign it at the end of the day, then all you have to do is check the book. If it’s not signed, then give him some extra work.
As far as extra work goes, why not keep track of what chapters he’s in, and then just assign him a bunch of random questions from the end of the chapter?
They already do that, supposedly. They have a notebook where they write their assignments, and the teacher makes notes in that as well, but he never brings THAT home. We’ve tried and tried but I can’t go physically pack it into his backpack in class every day and his teacher is unwilling to do so as well.
As far as “what chapters” they are in, it seems to be not that cut-and-dried. He also never brings textbooks home, and his homework isn’t in the form of “do x y and z out of the book” it’s almost always in the form of handouts. I’ve never even seen his textbooks.
Here’s a worksheet generator for basic math computation. I used a similar site a few years ago when I was going through the same thing with my son, when he was that age. Refresh for a different worksheet as needed.
The strategy that you are using worked really well for my son, and it wasn’t long until he was bringing home his work again, and I didn’t need to load homework on him anymore.
I used to get punished when I didn’t bring home my assignments signed by the teacher; IIRC, it was to the effect of no TV, no videogames, etc. It worked well because it was either get it signed, bring it home, and do the homework so I could have fun or forget it and be bored all evening. Then again, I suppose if the teach is unwilling, I guess there’s not much you can do about it at all.
This is actually quite surprising to me. Granted, it’s been a while since I was in 5th grade, but I still remember most of my teachers sending home lesson plans about what stuff would be studied in what subjects when. I also remember most of my homework being out of a text book, with the exception of a few subjects, like math, where it was just easier to do a worksheet.
Since you do seem to have a good grasp on what they’re studying, maybe you could just ask him to bring home the books and you can look at them together. Of course, I imagine he’ll conveniently forget several times, as I probably would have, but I really dunno how that would help either without the assistance of the teacher.
Another idea would be to have him research and do some quick report. Is he studying American history? Have him write a two page report on a particular state, or a particular event, then ask him some questions, especially if they’re things you don’t know. What is he studying in science? Maybe he can write a report about one of the planets, or about how volcanos form, or related to whatever they’re studying. For English, maybe you could locate an ageappropriate book or short story and have him do a book report on it.
He is already on video game restriction, and I do take away TV when he doesn’t have his homework. It doesn’t help.
They aren’t doing science right now–they alternate it with social studies (WWII right now). How weird is that?
Anyway, while I do appreciate your brainstorming ideas, I am really pretty specifically looking for worksheets that I can download and print, not ideas for other kinds of work I can have him do. I’m a full time student myself, and I frankly don’t have the time myself to do all the “lesson planning” (and grading) that would come with making my own assignments for him. (When he was recently suspended I had him write a report as punishment at home. It took several hours of MY time in addition to punishing him.) Remember, I’m not trying to homeschool here, I’m trying to provide a consequence for not doing homework.
Why bother making his “homework” match anything he is doing in class. Get him to copy the dictionary/Encyclopaedia, or add all the fractions from 1/2 to 1/10.
