I hate homework!

L spent this afternoon on his homework. *After he started playing with his
brother, he was sent to the toilet to prevent distraction, then came out to
the table while I cooked. *While I was cooking tea, he said he'd "finished
that sentence," and started to put his book aside.

"Was that your last sentence?"
"No."
"Well, keep going then."

I was almost finished cooking when he announced that he'd "done the last
sentence--" Oh good, I thought -- "and was now doing the other five."

Er, what other five?
The ones for his 'favourite' five from the spelling list of fifteen words.*You
have to write a sentence for each word, then use five again to total twenty
sentences. He had done seven sentences the previous night.

That is, it had taken him from 5pm to 7:30pm to write *eight* sentences. *
I had best draw a veil over my reaction...

The week's homework is issued on Monday and consists of a list of 15 spelling
words and a worksheet. *The words are to be written out once per day, and then
the twenty sentences must be created. *It is handed in on Friday. *On Monday
and Tuesday, L is at after-school care, where they allot 15 mins for homework
and encourage, but do not force, the kids to do it. *L generally does his
worksheet and maybe one 'day' of spelling words. *He then has Wed and Thu to
write out the rest of the words and sentences.**The fifteen words are not
related thematically; there tends to be a group with some particular spelling
pattern (ridge, lodge, bridge), a few that have the same roots (hot, hotter,
hottest), and some 'scientific' words (energy, solar, wind-up). L has an
extensive vocabulary for his age(*)*and is usually challenged by the meaning
or spelling of one word on the list, which is for the top spelling group.**The
sentences must each include a conjunction.**As a rule, I give him a 'spelling
test' for the 'Thu' column of words. *I strongly encourage him to do half the
sentences on the Wed, but we are a bit short of time as we come home from
music lesson at about 6:15pm.

I have never found making up sentences difficult, but*I never had homework at
his age (he is 7yo and in Year 2, third year of school). *I have no particular
enthusiasm for HW so young but feel that just dropping it would reward him for
being lazy. *His teacher might be amenable to some changes to his HW, but I
would prefer to give him some sort of framework for developing sentences. *He
is not finding sentence construction boring, just difficult; and I feel he is
both easily distracted from it and over-thinking the sentences. *I have PLENTY
of things I would rather (or need to) be doing than standing over L for three
hours, but plainly my cruise-past-frequently style is not working and the
situation is getting worse rather than better. *OTOH I can't work out what
else I should do as I don't believe in doing the homework for him. Plainly
the natural consequence of not having any playtime is an insufficient
deterrent.

All advice and ideas welcome.

(*) *He has just complained that his*inquisitive little brother's presence in
the loo is "impolite and unhygienic"!

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/