Back to the topic at hand: my SD has just started her school for a few week now in first grade (she is 7 y. old). Her mom was working with her on her homework, and she was so discouraged, so I took her place instead.
And went WTF?!?
SD is learning to read, so here is what her homework was: on the page is a box with about 15 small words (they are simple two-syllables words, but this is really hard for her, because she tends to forget the first syllable before she finishes reading the second).
Under it is a list of check boxes - about 10 check boxes.
So she is supposed to read each of the 15 word in the box, then tick one of the check-box under it and start over... till she has done it basically 10 times.
Of course you can picture the situation: incredibly tired little girl, fedup, bored, cranky, with no more attention spam; exhausted mom got her after work school, barely had the time to drive home, make dinner, eat, then WHAM over one hour of homework to do and then it's nearly time to go sleep. Poor girls (both of them!)
So I am looking at her homework and I can't believe how stupid it is. Because of course, after the 3rd time, she is not really reading anymore, she is <I>guessing</I> by trying to remember what word were where instead of reading. And of course she is dead BORED!! No wonder kids have such a hard time to read!
So I took the words in the box and made funny sentences with them and had her read that. At least it made some sense now and it was a little more interesting. Poor kid.
Any of you have "modified" what homework they were supposed to do, in an attempt to help?