As a teacher, I understand the importance of working with the school towards your child’s education. Therefore, I try really hard to make sure that my daughter never sees/hears if I disagree with her teacher/school. However, I slipped last night. Cameron came home with more homework than she’s had all year (with just a month left of school), and I voiced my displeasure openly (oops!). I did catch myself and not go off on a tangent, but I was disappointed to have slipped.
Story – Cameron is in 2nd grade. She’s had a little homework here and there this year, but overall I’ve been amazed at how little homework she has. Since Kindergarten she’s had a little homework almost every night. This year she’s had very little homework (except for studying spelling words which never has an assignment geared towards it). I mean maybe one assignment every 8 to 10 weeks. Last night she comes home with EIGHT pages of math. Eight pages. And we’re talking about at least 10 questions on each page. Some had more than that. It didn’t help matters any that we had ball practice yesterday too which means what I think is a ridicolously long assignment is now taking up even more of our time. Luckily, she did tell me about it right after school, and we got started immediately. We did finish the assignment without too many problems though all she did yesterday was math homework and ball practice from the time school got out (3:15) until 9:00 last night – she didn’t even eat until then.
But this has me thinking, how much homework should a 7 year old have? I have to say that I think 100+ math problems in one night is too many, but where is the line? Is there a line? I know at the high school level I have less sympathy for our kids, but I do still have some. I try to give less homework on Wednesday nights as most of our students go to church on Wednesday nights. I also give less on game nights that fall during the week than others. But as a parent, I’m now wondering about the younger ages – elementary students. I’m not sure what my opinion is yet, but I’d love to hear your stories and ideas.
Laurie Conroy says:
Thank you for that post. I have often wondered that myself. My seven year old often has more homework than her brother who is in grade 11! She has an immersion program at her school so every night she has spelling in French and English, Printing practice, reading in both French and English and has to practice her site words as wll, (although I have slacked off on that because she is such a good reader). I sometimes wonder as does my husband and older son and daughter on how much is too much?
Thanks for the post, again
Laurie Conroy
Kimberly says:
Thanks for the comment Laurie. I am going to try to remember to do a little research this summer over this.
Private Tutor says:
Wow that is a lot of homework. I don’t think homework for a child should take more than 1hour at most? A it is difficult for them to focus and retain any information if they go beyond that timeframe and B if a child is not even able to eat when doing homework and the needed social activities, I definately say “too much” is the word.
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