Another homework question
Moms View Message Board: Parenting Discussion: Archive July-December 2005:
Another homework question
How much homework do your children get? Our district does an average of 10 minutes per grade per night, like 1st grade 10 minutes, 6th grade 60 minutes, etc. etc. Once they hit middle school it's supposed to follow the same rules, but it's an average of 1 1/2 hrs or more per night, including weekends and holidays.
I think my kids spend about an hour on homework, every day. Sometimes, more, sometimes, less. 8th grade and junior in high school.
My son, 1st grade, has about 10 minutes, usually less for him because he picks up math very well.
My daughter, 4th grade, usually has around one to one and a half hours a night. But, she dawdles around sometimes, so I don't know if it is because she has that much, or because she is constantly having to get herself back on task.
There is usually a lot of finding and writing definitions, and she is a slow writer.
Sometimes I feel they have too much at any age. After spending so much time in school, which they work pretty much constantly here, I feel they should not have to do 2 hours of homework afterwards. I sometimes think more is expected out of children than adults. I know some adults bring their work home every night with them. But even more leave their 8 hour a day job, and do not come home with 2 more hours of work to do at home.
It may be different in other areas, but here, the kids have lunch, about a 20 minute break afterwards MOST of the time, and maybe a fifteen minute break in the afternoon. The rest of the time is spent on heavy instruction and work. I work in the school, so I see what goes on, this isn't just my opinion... It seems like after that much time working, there wouldn't be a need for so much work after school. But the standards are set so high that the teachers really have no choice. I am in no way blaming the teachers, they are just following what they have to to get ready for our SOL's (Standard of Learning tests) that are mandatory for students to pass.
In my opinion, school has gotten ridiculous with their high standards for the youngest children. They have no time to just be children anymore.
DD (Gr. 2)- About 20 minutes of written homework M-W. 20 minutes reading daily.
DS (Gr. 4)- 30-40 minutes written homework M-Th. 30 minutes reading daily.
I don't think it's too much. Our district has a healthy philosophy on Homework. It reinforces what is being taught in school but isn't a burden. It keeps me on top of what they're learning in school and what they're having difficulty with.
Emily's 4th grade teacher wanted to end the unit on division and assigned a whole bunch of pages one night. It took her hours and then he never went over it in class. Huh? Poor kid was so frustrated. Anyway, I knew she was having trouble with it, that night, maybe she was tired, but I vowed that the next time she brought her math book home, I was going to go over that homework with her again.
So, a few days later, she brings her math book home. We go over the division problems again and she easily figures out her mistakes. It takes us far less time and she never had trouble with long division again! LOL! Hmmm, maybe I should have homeschooled, huh?
I still don't know why he dumped that homework on them and then never discussed it! Well, no matter now, 4 years later. I did the discussion with her myself and then she understood it better. She still ended up on the Algebra in 8th grade math track, anyway, and very rarely needs help with it.
My son's school says the kids (5th grade) should only do an hour, Monday-Thursday. At 1 hour the parent is supposed to tell them to stop and write a note saying they weren't able to finish in an hour. The teacher's then adjust the work depending on if it was too difficult, not understood or too much.
My boys (3rd and 6th) usually have no more than 30 minutes a night and no homework at all on Wed. since it is a church night and they go to a private Christian school. Our personal philosophy is that they will spend no more than one hour on homework. It is not a school policy, but if they consistently have more than one hour of homework we would be sending a note to school telling the teacher that our kids won't be doing it. I think homework that reinforces ideas taught in school or is for the purpose of practicing concepts (i.e., math) is fine, but busywork (crossword puzzles and the like) are not. I'm sure we'll have to tweak the one hour HW rule later in middle school and high school, but for now it works fine.
My youngest ds, who is in 1/2 day kindergarten, has one worksheet a day to do at home. It usually takes about 10 minutes.
My oldest ds, who is in 2nd grade, spends about 15 minutes doing written homework each day and then we go over his weekly spelling words. He also has to do 15 minutes of reading out loud each night. We do this together before bed.
I think it is really hard to designate how long a child should be doing homework. (A maximum time, yes, but to say a certain age group should be doing homework for X amount of time, no). One child will take a few minutes on the same homework that will take another child a half hour. They both may *get* the concepts equally well, but one child may simply process the questions faster.
Our third grader is assigned one sheet of math and one sheet of spelling each night, along with monthly book reports. Griffin usually spends about 10 minutes or so on the worksheets will spend another 10 minutes or so reading at night.
Our fourth grader also typically is assigned one page of math and one page of spelling along with monthly book reports. He is through the homework in less than 10 minutes and will have his nose in a book for more than 30 minutes a day.
My DS is in 2nd grade and has a miminum of 30 minutes and usually closer to an hour, sometimes more if there is a report due.
My DD is in 4th grade and has at least one hour a night but it's not unusual for her to have 2-3 hours a night. This month she has 2 books reports and a 3-D geograhphy project involving plaster of paris, etc. that she has to due in additon to everything else. Wednesday night is usually 3 hours as most of her tests are on Thursday.
Both of those times are without TV and working without interruptions. Our grade school is ranked number 25 out of close to 800 in the state.
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