toypup wrote:
DS finished the first day of kindergarten yesterday. For his
homework, he had to write his name, color a house, write his address,
draw a picture of someone he wants to talk on the phone with, write
his phone number. It took about half an hour and he was exhausted.
Afterward, we were supposed to read, but I wasn't going there.

I was expecting homework, I thought maybe write one letter of the
alphabet, but this is ridiculous. I told DH and he agreed, saying
there many kids coming into kindergarten not even reading much less
writing addresses. We happen to have a very long address, so it
wasn't easy. Anyway, just venting. Today, there is more homework,
but I tried to get some of it out of the way this morning before
school so he is not overwhelmed after school.

My five year old who has been in kindergarten since the beginning of
February so is almost 3/4 of the way through the school year has much less
homework than that. Every afternoon he brings home two repetitive reading
books suitable for his level of reading (by our design he was pre-reading
and writing apart from his name at the beginning of the year). He also has
had short lists from the 100 most common words to read and memorise but
that's been a very gradual and gentle process and I don't think they've got
through fifty of them yet. In the last month the whole grade has had an
exercise where they've all learnt how to recite their address and telephone
numbers but there's been no requirement to do more than read them. At this
point they are all writing simple sentences while those who came with some
writing skills already write a little more. Spelling is haphazard and based
on recognising some of a word's letters by their sound.

Occasionally there is some extra homework task like collecting autumn leaves
or drawing a fire escape plan for our house (with parental help) but it's
not onerous and there're usually several days to complete the task. My
experience with three children is that for the first half year the wee new
entrants are very tired by the time they get home from school and the last
thing we, as parents, have wanted is to do anything that makes schoolwork a
less than happy and fun experience.

I would request a meeting with the teacher (after arming myself with lots of
the anti-homework for lower grades research) and prepare to do battle.
Either that or just practice a bit of civil disobedience on behalf of my
child's mental and physical health. (This one gets a lot easier with
subsequent children, btw. )


Tai