The song, the art, the dance, of homework: An epic work in many acts.
posted in OmegaDotter, School |Every Monday through Thursday, the dotter brings home a folder. In that folder is a page or two of math homework each night. Every Tuesday, she gets a new book to read out loud (courtesy, though she does not know this, of a nefarious scheme concocted by OmegaMom and Ms. Nicely at the last parent-teacher conference). Every Monday, she gets a packet of spelling words to spell multiple times, alphabetize, place in “word boxes”, use for fill-in-the-blank sentences, and–bonus!–a few sentences made up by herself using those words.
Being a mean mommy, my routine is: I meet the dotter at the bus stop. We walk home. The dotter kicks off her boots, drops her jacket, dashes up to the bathroom, and begs for a snack. I strike the Mean Mommy Pose and ask what’s next. She mutters “chickens”. We go check the chickens for eggs. We return. She begs for a snack. I strike the Mean Mommy Pose and ask what’s next.
Homework.
I get her a snack.
We pull out the folder.
I collect the “graded” work (”Wow!” “Awesome!” “Super!” and suchlike, with here and there a 33/35 with circled blank answers). I try to toss some out, but these days, she insists on going through them and keeping the majority in her “school box”.
I read various notes from the school.
She asks where her erasers are. I say I don’t know. She looks for them.
I wait.
She comes back. She asks where her pencils are. I say I don’t know. She looks for one.
I wait.
She returns. She grabs some markers and writes her name in alternating orange and green letters. I clasp my hands under the table. She asks me to sharpen her pencil. I cock an eyebrow at her. She asks me to please sharpen her pencil. I sharpen the pencil. She has started coloring in turtles on the math homework with her orange marker.
She starts her homework. “What am I supposed to do?” I shrug and say, “I dunno. Read the directions.” She reads the directions. “Oh, that’s easy!” She counts the turtles and the butterflies that are in problem 1 and 2, carefully sorted into groups of tens and ones. “Is this right?” she asks. I shrug and say, “What do you think?” She checks again. (Har!)
She bounces in her chair. She turns her math homework sheet upside down. I strike the Mean Mommy Pose and suggest she focus. She reads the story problem (”There are 6 boys in the tent. There are 8 boys outside the tent. How many boys are there all together?”). She starts drawing six tents. I mention that it’s boys she’s supposed to be counting. Oops. She erases the tents. She draws a boy. She writes “boys” above the boy, and “6″ beneath the boy (thank heavens–a few weeks ago, she would have insisted on drawing every. Single. Boy. Differently.). She climbs up onto her chair and squats on the seat. She draws another boy and writes “boys” above that one, and “8″ beneath. She puts a plus sign between them, an equals sign at the end, a blank box to hold the answer, and the word “boys”. She counts. She draws in “14″. Then she puts “14 boys” in the (provided) answer space. She grabs the orange marker to color in some more turtles. I strike the MMP again and announce, “No more coloring turtles until you’re done with your homework.”
Now it’s time to draw ten-lines and one-dots to a specified number. She asks what she’s supposed to do. I shrug and say, “Read the directions.” She reads and thinks. She has three problems, stacked on top of each other. She draws a ten-line all the way down and giggles. I ask what problem that ten-line goes to. She looks at it and giggles again. She erases the bottom part. She turns around in her chair. She erases the second third. She bounces off the chair and grabs the orange marker to color some more turtles. I ask, “Are you done with all your homework?” She giggles and says no. She erases the rest of the ten-line. She says, “Now what was I supposed to do? I forgot.” I tell her to read the directions again.
She draws another ten-line. She dots it with ten dots. I ask her what she’s doing. She says she’s making a pretty line. I suggest, somewhat wryly, that the whole idea behind ten-lines and one-dots is that it’s much quicker. Oh, she says. She finally draws six ten-lines and 4 one-dots to represent 64. I clutch my hands together beneath the table again. She jumps off the chair and runs off to get something. I holler, “Focus! Homework!” She runs back. She climbs on the chair. She whips out the remaining two problems.
I pull out the spelling homework.
She grabs the orange marker.
I give her the hairy eyeball as she quickly sneaks in two or three orange turtles.
She starts to work on the spelling. But first she puts checks in the checkboxes for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Bonus. I object, saying that she hasn’t done that work yet, and she can put checks in after she does that part. She erases it. She gets back into a squat up on the chair seat, and bounces up and down. She finishes the spelling parts and re-checks the boxes. (Yes, I know it’s anal of me, but she doesn’t necessarily do the stuff she’s planning to do, and I want her to get used to marking it off when it’s done.) (Harrumph.)
Now it’s time for reading. She swivels on her chair and drapes a leg over the back of it, with the other foot on the floor. She bounces on the floor foot. She reads a page. She turns around to show me the page, teacher-style. She turns the book sideways and reads another page. She points out some funny things in the picture. She slides out of the chair and backs into me while reading. She starts climbing up on me. She climbs off. She climbs onto her chair. She turns the book upside down and reads a few lines and laughs. She turns it right-side up, reads some more, and goes “WORMS?! Ewwwwww!”
She finishes her reading for the day. I heave a sigh and roll my eyes and start putting her homework back into her folder. She shrieks, “My turtles!” Oh, dear, my bad: yes, she must color in the turtles. And the butterflies.
All told, this routine takes an hour. Or an hour-and-a-half. This is something that could take fifteen or twenty minutes.
Please give me my halo and wings. I deserve it.
(For those who wonder why I don’t make her sit still and focus focus focus…Um. Hm. Well. It’s a sort of philosophical thing with me. She is a very physical child, very sensory oriented. She has been this way from Day One, with the foot thing. The bouncing, the spinning, the turning things this way and that–it all seems to help her. Also, I don’t want to make homework a horrid dull chore. So long as she’s doing it, getting the concepts, and (generally) having a good time with it, I will grit my teeth and practice patience. Intense patience. The patience of saints.)
In the meantime, today is our Metcha Day. Yup, six years ago. Whoa. It doesn’t seem possible. That little girl–up above–is now this little girl, staging a rolling-pin fight with OmegaDad.
