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I am so tried of homework!!!!! It has taken over our family life. My dd does 3-4 hours a night and about 6 hours during the weekend. I am having to do all her chores so she can do homework. She has not had a night without homework since school started. This is ridiculous. There is no reason to have a 14yr old do this much work! They don't do work in class. Class is all demonstrations and lecture or taking notes. Why can't they do work in class?

I "homeschool" her more now than I did when we were homeschooling. And having to do all this work after being at school for six hour is wrong!!!! My dd is mentally drained and tired. A person can focus for only so long in a day. She is a child. She needs down time. :rant:

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Would you be able to homeschool her? If not, perhaps you need to go to her teachers, administrators, and if necessary, the school board. I'd go through the channels because many times, teachers do not communicate with each other as to the timing of tests and homework loads. And if teachers know you won't stop with them, they might be more willing to listen. Just be calm, fair and have her homework documented - number of math problems, length of essays, required reading - a real log of what happens each night.

It would also help to get other parental backup.

 

Perhaps this load is OK for a junior or senior honors student, but it seems excessive for a freshman.

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My oldest attended public school. I can remember attending an open house at her middle school where they told us that the teachers worked together to make sure that the students had no more than an hour of homework. Ummm, I don't think so!

 

Like you I gave her a lot of slack with housework. She was married at 20 and it shows that she didn't have a handle on housework :glare:. She is in the school of hard knocks now with a baby underfoot too.

 

I feel your pain!

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I am so tried of homework!!!!! It has taken over our family life. My dd does 3-4 hours a night and about 6 hours during the weekend. I am having to do all her chores so she can do homework. She has not had a night without homework since school started. This is ridiculous. There is no reason to have a 14yr old do this much work! They don't do work in class. Class is all demonstrations and lecture or taking notes. Why can't they do work in class?

I "homeschool" her more now than I did when we were homeschooling. And having to do all this work after being at school for six hour is wrong!!!! My dd is mentally drained and tired. A person can focus for only so long in a day. She is a child. She needs down time. :rant:

 

My sister-in-law told me that my 5th grade niece has 1 and a half to 2 hours homework daily. She's 10 yo. I asked her what on earth they are sending home and was informed, spelling, math, science, etc. Okay, then. Sounds like they do their work at home and do something else in school. :tongue_smilie:

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We put our 10th grader in school this year. He has 3 honors classes and only has little bits of homework, sometimes none. I am not impressed with our school. Somedays he says he is wasting his time because they don't do much in school. I think they really aim low because they don't want anyone to fail. We may bring him home again next year.

 

Cindy

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My daughter who is only in 6th grade usually has an hour to two hours every night. She was sick on Tuesday and came home with loads of homework on Wednesday. She got home about 4:30 and worked until 10pm with the exception of a dinner break. My 7th grader usually only has an hour of homework. It is really strange that the 6th graders get way more homework than the 7th??? AND my 7th is in all pre-ap classes.

 

SIGH.... they really enjoy school, but honestly some of it is starting to get old. We are already experiencing the girl drama! AND everyone seems so boy crazy!

 

Honestly, my 7th and 3rd grader seems to be doing well, but my 6th grader is tired, cranky and VERY stressed out. She is also active outside of school too. She go the role of Dorothy in our community play, which is a huge commitment, takes piano, guitar and voice, and is on a company drama team that perfoms around town at different fuctions.

 

So, I am at a loss here. I enjoy not worrying about the academics, but is it worth it?

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and am fine with it. Classes are short (45min) so there isn't time to do homework. My ds is doing fine even though he leaves at 7:15 and doesn't get home until 6:00 due to soccer practice/games. Then he does his homework until bedtime and even some mornings before school. He also has piano every Wednesday night and has to practice for that too.

 

What did you expect for 9th grade?

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and am fine with it. Classes are short (45min) so there isn't time to do homework. My ds is doing fine even though he leaves at 7:15 and doesn't get home until 6:00 due to soccer practice/games. Then he does his homework until bedtime and even some mornings before school. He also has piano every Wednesday night and has to practice for that too.

 

What did you expect for 9th grade?

 

My 10th grader is much the same.

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and am fine with it. Classes are short (45min) so there isn't time to do homework. My ds is doing fine even though he leaves at 7:15 and doesn't get home until 6:00 due to soccer practice/games. Then he does his homework until bedtime and even some mornings before school. He also has piano every Wednesday night and has to practice for that too.

 

What did you expect for 9th grade?

I don't expect school to take over a person's life. I expect there to be more work done in the classroom and the things that were not completed to be brought home. Not an extra day's worth of work each night. And I expect the weekends to be family time not school time. I expect my dc to have enough time to do chores at home, go to youth group, go to choir practive and be able to go to bed at least by 10 and not 11 to 12 at night. I really don't think that is asking too much.

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I don't expect school to take over a person's life. I expect there to be more work done in the classroom and the things that were not completed to be brought home. Not an extra day's worth of work each night. And I expect the weekends to be family time not school time. I expect my dc to have enough time to do chores at home, go to youth group, go to choir practive and be able to go to bed at least by 10 and not 11 to 12 at night. I really don't think that is asking too much.

 

It may depend on the school as well - my ds attends a highly academic charter school where the majority take AP classes and more than 90% go on to 4 year colleges. He is taking 5 academic classes and has to work HARD at it. His only other activity is basketball (and during the season he doesn't have time to BREATHE!)

 

The only thing he complains about is that he works so hard and his grades aren't reflecting that, but we are working on it.

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I don't expect school to take over a person's life. I expect there to be more work done in the classroom and the things that were not completed to be brought home. Not an extra day's worth of work each night. And I expect the weekends to be family time not school time. I expect my dc to have enough time to do chores at home, go to youth group, go to choir practive and be able to go to bed at least by 10 and not 11 to 12 at night. I really don't think that is asking too much.

It might not be asking too much, but ime it is unrealistic if you are an honors student or on the serious college prep track; at my high school, most of the students I knew easily spent that long, and chronic lack of sleep (and high stress) was common. If you aren't going to pull her out, it would probably be a good idea to figure out ways to get the work done faster, or prioritize it so that the important things get done, and let the rest fall by the wayside. It's a good life skill to learn, really.

 

Some ideas:

*Remember that 90% of the work takes 10% of the time; the other 10% takes 90% of the time. Work all your assignments to ~90% before then going back (only if there is time) to do the remainder. With math, skip any problem that is taking a lot longer than the rest. In the time it takes to do that one problem, you could have done 5-6 others, or even more. Same with any other assignment - skip over anything that is taking too long. Four assignments at 90% are better than two at 100% and two at 20%.

 

*Make use of all the "wasted time" in school that hslers always talk about. Always keep work or a school book out, and work on it whenever there is a spare moment. There are lots of them, and at my school we were fanatical about taking advantage of them. Also work during lunch and on the bus.

 

*If something is a pointless assignment (and there are generally plenty of those), don't waste any more time than is needed to get it done just well enough to get a decent grade.

 

*Increasing your reading speed pays big dividends, as done streamlining what you need to do to get something in long-term memory. Personally, I spent 1-2 hours a night on hw - much less than many of my peers - and a lot of that was due to reading fast and having a good memory; I just didn't have to study that long. (Also I procrastinated like crazy, and thus learned to work *very* fast, but I don't really recommend that approach :D.)

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Around here, sixth graders have around two hours of homework per night. I imagine in 9th, there would be more. If you can't or don't want to live with so much homework, then why not consider homeschooling so you can have more control of your dd's schedule. I am one who would be stressed out by it, and yet the child is not helped if I don't support the teachers I have placed her with. 9th grade is going to be a lot of work, no matter where you school.

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Around here, sixth graders have around two hours of homework per night. I imagine in 9th, there would be more. If you can't or don't want to live with so much homework, then why not consider homeschooling so you can have more control of your dd's schedule. I am one who would be stressed out by it, and yet the child is not helped if I don't support the teachers I have placed her with. 9th grade is going to be a lot of work, no matter where you school.

This is her first year back from HS'ing. She begged to go to high school and she is will to work like crazy to be there. I personally just don't get it. It is her choice. But it is driving ME crazy! I was in honors classes in PS and have a college degree. I don't every remember having to do as much work as she is doing. That is one reasons I questioning the value of doing that much work.

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I have an eighth grader. He has maybe an hour of homework each night, not including reading time. He has Spanish homework every night. I think the core subject teachers do homework on a rotating schedule. It seems that he only has two classes other than Spanish every night. Sometimes he has big projects, like designing, building and testing a solar oven. He had two weeks for that.

 

He is involved in a lot of things, but it is all managable. Homework is part of public school. My students have math homework almost every night. They need the practice.

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...my 6th grader is tired, cranky and VERY stressed out. She is also active outside of school too. She go the role of Dorothy in our community play, which is a huge commitment, takes piano, guitar and voice, and is on a company drama team that perfoms around town at different fuctions.

 

So, I am at a loss here. I enjoy not worrying about the academics, but is it worth it?

 

 

Our sixth grader has more homework than her ninth grade sister! She's the sort that likes to get her work done so she can "be free". So, yesterday, she plunked right down the moment she walked in the door from school and started in on her homework. But, it was obvious that she wasn't really focusing -- I looked over her math worksheet later and found several errors, but opted to not ask her to correct them. (It's a tough call, that one.) I finally convinced her to take a break, have a snack, and go back to her work a bit later.

 

Add to this load the fact that she (a) just got a part in the high school play, (b) just joined a club at school that meets weekly, and © takes piano lessons weekly. We've dropped karate for the time being because it was just proving to be too much, but I had (note past tense?) high hopes that we could get back to it at some point. Now, I'm not sure.

 

Where is the balance? As my dd says, "How can they expect me to sit in school for 6.5 hours, and then come home and do more school for another 2 hours!?"

 

Blah.

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Oh my gosh! ITA!!!

 

I am up to here! with stupid worksheets,for my first grader. He is in school this year,due to necessity,so I am having to "suck up" much of what goes on,and pick my battles.There have been times(already),that I have just sent my dc outside to play-forget the homework! I always follow this up with an email to the teacher,explaining that we felt our dc needed to work off energy,etc..and can he do the work over the weekend.

 

Thank God,my sixth grader's teacher doesn't believe in homework! She allows in class study time(if you will),and my dc has only brought home spelling words to practice.We feel so blessed to get this teacher,as she has said she she has three goals for her students.1) They enjoy school and learning. 2) Her students are prepared for seventh grade.3) Her in class schedule allows for study time,to maximize family time and down time for her students in the evenings. Talk about getting the diamond in the rough!LOL!!

 

Smiles:)

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  • 3 weeks later...

My son is in 9th this year. Thankfully, they have a study hall built into their schedule every day (which I was a little irritated about at first, but am now thankful) which helps. They are pretty strict that it is a no -talking work period. But, even with that, we still have a LOT of homework. The reading I don't mind, or even writing some papers. But some of the stuff (in my view) is not meaningful, and I think just something is be able to give them a daily/weekly grade. We are so frustrated about it, we are considering taking him out next year. But, honestly, a lot of it is my child not managing his time well, and taking 2 hours to do something that would have taken him 30-45 minutes at school. I have already emailed a teacher and am meeting with her soon about the amount of homework. They claim it is because it is college prep that this is normal and acceptable. But for Freshman? I told her I'm not sure that this is a good fit for us (we'll talk more about it at the meeting, I'm sure) because I don't know if I want him spending his teen years enslaved to 5 hours a homework a night and missing weekend things because of projects and tests due on Monday. I'm still trying to sort it all out ~

 

I feel your pain though ~

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I am a single mom and have sent DS to a private school of our religion since Kindergarten. K, 1st, and 2nd were OK - a couple of copies of busy work 2 or 3 nights per week. It was easy to do the rigorous WTM homeschooling then.

 

Now in 3rd it is a whole new world. DS got put up to 4th Gr. math that they use, Scott Foresman. He is still in 2B of Singapore at home, and so he has 35 math problems every night. I can hardly get him to do 2 Singapore lessons per week. For foreign language, I get a newsletter from that teacher stateing the kids have homework 3 nights per week, yet I never see any. Only this morning did DS say he has it but gets it done in the class. For Social Studies and English Language Composition, they have had a African country to do a writing and poster board project on with another student from the class for the last 5 weeks. DS's partner didn't do any of the research or writing, the board she made only had three things on it. So, I talked to the teacher last week about how uncooperative she was and he split them up. That meant he had to do all of it himself, so who is his hidden partner, me! I am doing the typing for the written report in Word, but he dictates to me the content. I spent 4 hours at the school printing photos of the subjects he wanted on his poster, and spent yesterday, all day, cutting and glueing, in the end he colored the flag on the poster. His subtitles are Presidents of Kenya, Map, Flag, Mount Kenya, Amazing People of Kenya, Preventing Extinction of Animals of Kenya(includes Joy and George Adamson of Elsa/Born Free fame), and Barack Obama's Relatives Celebrate! I think he did pretty well. Just a little brag! We still need to complete and edit the written report, which will take all of this evening! If not more!!

 

I haven't won the lottery, so I must work FT or close to it. I also must figure out how I can support us, continue homeschooling, and be successful at two more four-day-a-week semesters of nursing school, so I can move up from LPN to RN. As an RN I will make a significant amount of money more than as an LPN. Then I could work less hours and hs more or do more housework, learn more myself classically, etc. I could also do the kind of nursing I want, like L & D or other maternity/newborn areas.

 

I was hooting and hollering when I saw the title of this thread because I had just gotten off the phone with the founder of a local and all styles of hsing support group and website. I was talking about this very topic. The amount of homework and how to continue to hs when there is less and less time. Her summary of my complaints were to take him out of the school and hs full time. I don't know how to do that as a single mom, full time worker, with no family support, and I must go back to school and work. I admit I do use the school for daycare. They are better at a few topics than myself, PE, foreign language, art. These are important to me but I want to be in charge of the basics. OH, WELL!!!

 

My basic advice is breathe and do the best you can.:001_huh:

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My son is in 4th this year and regularly gets 2-3 hours of homework a night. His teacher is the kind that punishes the whole class for one bad kid so she'll throw out 3 extra pages of homework when mad. ugh.... And, he totally gets away with doing dishes and cleaning up after supper. His brother in kindgarten has had to pick up the slack with housework due to homework...........:banghead: I despise homework. it serves no purpose.

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We put our 10th grader in school this year. He has 3 honors classes and only has little bits of homework, sometimes none. I am not impressed with our school. Somedays he says he is wasting his time because they don't do much in school. I think they really aim low because they don't want anyone to fail. We may bring him home again next year.

 

Cindy

 

though my son is not in any honors classes, we are having a similar experience. i don't know how much longer i will be able to stomach the low academic standards. my son, OTOH, is enjoying the vacation.

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