Whatsit Jr. started kindergarten this year, and this week brought home a “homework folder”. Every week it will be sent home on Monday with the week’s assignments, and is to be sent back on Friday with the completed worksheets in it.
It seems to be pretty low-key; this week, he’s supposed to do a worksheet each day on practicing a particular letter of the alphabet. So today was the letter “B” and he wrote a couple lines each of capital B and lowercase B, and then circled some pictures of things that start with the letter B. All in all it took him about 20 minutes, and that’s only because he kept stopping to show off his l33t penmanship to me.
Anyway, I’m not bothered by it, because it seems very reasonable and lightweight, but I don’t remember having any homework in kindergarten at all. Is this normal these days?
At my kid’s school they started bringing home a “homework bag” after Christmas break. Each one contained a couple of books to read, usually around a common theme, and a couple of related learning games to play. They also had a journal and each kid was supposed to write a few sentences about the books or some specific question. Parents could help with the reading and writing, depending on what level their kid had gotten to at the time. The kids kept each bag for a week and then got a different one the next week. They also were occasionally tapped to do “sharing,” where they brought in a book or toy or whatever and told the class about it.
My third child is now in kindergarten. He and his older siblings have all had homework. I think it isn’t as much for the actual learning involved as it is to get them into the habit that you do homework when you get home from school.
My son has had homework since kindergarten. He is now in 4th grade and has about an hour of homework a night (exactly how long it should take is hard to tell, since he is quite smart, which lessens the time it takes, and extremely whiney and distracted, which lengthens it).
As for my own childhood, the first I remember of homework was in 5th grade. I could just be forgetting, but the current pile-on-the-homework trend seems wierd to me by comparison with my own schooling. In some ways it seems like the kids have to learn the basics (math, handwriting, reading) at home from their parents through homework, while the school day is spent in touchy feely activities. I’m not pleased, to tell the truth. If I wanted to be the one to teach my son cursive (which is what I’m doing now), I’d home school.
I’m fairly sure CairoCarol isn’t in the same school district, but my answer is nearly the same. Both my kids (3rd and 6th grade, now) have had homework from kindergarten on. Math is the worst, as they are still trying new techniques on the poor devils. There are times that I can’t figure out what the question is, much less what answer they want - “Using 10’s plotting, detail 4 ways to solve 7*2”
I think the teachers are hoping the parents can figure out what the school board is trying to do, so they send home assignments until someone deciphers the latest of the New Maths.
My nephew had homework from the age of 4. One I remember was a race game: it was teaching the concepts of counting, randomness, and that sometimes other people win and that’s okay.
My oldest started kindergarten two weeks ago, and hasn’t had any homework, which surprised me. But he’s in a special ed class, so that might work differently. Also, I’m pretty sure that most of the parents of his fellow students are not very involved, from what I’ve seen. I think his school has given up on parental involvement. Regardless, I still work with him on his letters and counting and addition and such.
When he was in a special ed preschool, he occasionally had some homework project, which was usually a pain in the ass. (“Drive your child around to several apple orchards, and then take a trip to the grocery store to inspect the selection of apples in the produce section, and then buy some apples from a supermarket/roadside stand/orchard and go home and bake an apple pie.” Whew.)
My youngest is in third grade now, and not only has had homework every night since starting kindergarten, but also has to (and has had to since the start of kindergarten) read for 20 minutes every night.
I had homework in kindergarten (let’s see, that would be 20 really depressing years ago) but only because I didn’t finish my in-class work. They soon figured out I didn’t finish my worksheets in class because I got headaches, and I got headaches because I needed glasses. Once I got the glasses, the “homework” went away.
Even over here in the antipodes - from the age of five (that’s your kindergarten, right?) my girl had her homework book - it was practice letter and numbers, plus some very basic readers.
She may have been give extra as she’s ‘gifted’. Certainly by the middle of her first school year, she was mightily pissed off that she had to do more work than anyone else in her class, even though she did it faster.
I didn’t have regular homework until 4th grade–I remember this because it was the first year we could justify purchasing a Mead Trapper-Keeper.
Things are different now; my son has had homework since first grade; he’s been at two different schools and had homework at both. Other parents I’ve spoken to at other schools (and in other areas) seem to concur.
I’ve been happiest when it’s been like you’re describing it–light, simple, and given out days in advance of when it’s “due” so we have some flexibility. For a while we had some homework that had a one-night turnaround and that was difficult to manage when we had evening activities.
This year my son’s school sponsored a workshop with an educational scholar who feels homework can be counterproductive. I am not sure yet, but it appears his current teacher (3rd grade) may have bought into that. Fingers crossed.
Yeah, I am not a fan of homework in general, and was prepared to be fully outraged when my son came home with a bright yellow “Weekly Homework” folder. But then I looked at the actual assignments, and it wasn’t such a big deal. It’s mostly just practice writing letters, and I think getting some reinforcement at home in the skills they’re learning at school is actually a pretty good idea. I don’t think they’re graded on their work or anything. At most they might get a sticker or something for turning it in on time. So I am basically okay with it.
My son had homework last year (kindergarten). The teacher had a homework folder at at the beginning of every month she attached a new month calendar with what homework would be and when they would be tested on it. It was stuff like “Monday write 10 words that start with A” and “Tuesday read the take home book” and the book was 6 or 7 pages.
Now in 1st grade he has homework every night that has to be turned in the next day. It is usually one math page (front and back) and one reading/writing page (front and back) plus we have a sheet that I have to sign off on each section when he completes the reading satisfactorily and have turned in by Friday, plus a sheet of weekly sight words to be completed by Thursday. Sound confusing? Yeah, it was at first but it is all very much on schedule and the instructions are at the top so it’s easy to get into the routine.
Now my 2 y/o brought home homework the other day… I can’t say I was super pleased about that but it was just to color something blue and it gave him a job to do while the 6 y/o was doing his homework so it wasn’t that bad.
No, Jesus probably didn’t start having homework until first grade.
Yep, kindergarten now is what first grade was when I was a kid - alphabet, reading, addition, subtraction, penmanship, Spanish (in an primarily English speaking school) and Earth science. The counting, colors, alphabet, coloring inside the lines, learn how to sit without the wiggles and how to stand in line and how to not grab someone else’s toys are all now preschool or even earlier tasks.
Cutting on the lines, apparently, is becoming a lost art. Every preschool and kindergarten my kids attended or I’ve volunteered in has pre-cut shapes, and first grade is too busy with academics. Our school has parent volunteers cut things out at home and send them to school, and someone in another thread recently said the same thing.
Actually, Whatsit Jr. has brought home several things from his first week or two that involved cutting on the lines. Some were just little cut-and-paste type activities, but some were worksheets that are apparently designed to teach cutting on the lines. One was a picture of a rocket ship, and you were supposed to cut lines on the contrails to make them wavy. (It is his favorite kindergarten project so far.)
Yep, very basic stuff with lots of time to do it. ALso had book baggies they could check out and brag bag turns. Lots of stuff to keep track of!
Our upper elementary school gives every student a planner where daily asssignments/activities are written. MY 3rd gets a HW packet on M due F.
I thought my 6th grader would be having a ton of HW right now, but so far she is just luggin home the 5lb math text and getting ready for standardized testing MEAP. And practicing clarinet.
It can be a minor pita sometimes but parental involvement is required to some degree as well. I have my kids study at the DR table, the Dad has to keep the TV off (sorry Dad, but its the law) we’re available for questions , as a sounding board, whatever they need.
For what it’s worth, I had homework in kindergarten, in the 1988/1989 school year, so it’s definitely not a new thing. We started out with a worksheet every few nights that we had to fill out with uppercase and lowercase letters. (one day “A,” one day “B” and so on) I remember walking home chattering at my parents about how I had “real homework!” the day we got the first assignment. By the time I got to the lowercase “E”, I was less than enthralled. I think, later in the year, we got a few worksheets now and then, but mostly, the rest of what I remember is one time I had to lay my head down on my desk for getting in a water fight, one girl peed her pants, and there was this awesome cash register toy thing that everyone fought over.
My little brother, in the 2001/2002 school year, had a homework folder in kindergarten and had assignments sent home every few days. I assume they were similar.
