Tuesday, August 31, 2010

So, um, about that summer homework

Guess I haven't been too good about reporting in on my kids' progress with their summer homework. Like my son who was supposed to blog every day under my late-summer regimen, I've been slacking. My daughter's homework routine is pretty much in ruins; she's been so stressed about the start of college that I've given her a break from the practice problems. I thought it would be something to take her mind off the wait, but I think it just made her more freaked out. So now, she can watch TV and browse Facebook uninterrupted all the way to the time that college classes begin. We all need a little slothfulness now and then.

My son, despite his non-blogging, has been doing pretty well with the summer homework. Well, we haven't really been reading too much either. Here's the problem I now discover with reading books together on the iPad -- he can always use "the battery's dead" as an excuse. I think he purposely runs the battery down so he'll be able to say that (not so easy, since iPad has a pretty long battery life). Next time, maybe we'll have to go for reading material without a screen.

The geometry and Spanish worksheets, however, he has been working on diligently and without complaint, and that fills me with hope for the school year ahead. I'm extremely pleased by how willingly he's worked -- that's such a large part of the battle, getting the kid to sit down to the homework and feel like the work's not over his head. My boy has always balked when he feels he can't do it, and that has not happened with any of the work this summer. Don't know how closely it will correspond to the actual geometry and Spanish that will be coming home, but it's a delightfully good sign.

Are your kids still homeworking? Are they in school already? We've got until next Tuesday. Less than a week. Counting down.

1 comment:

Adelaide Dupont said...

And here I was thinking that the IPad was wireless!