Kids and learning

[packrat]

So..ok, I admit I'm a bit of a worry wart when it comes to my kids and their smarts. I did well in school. When I went to school they didn't have the TAG programs, but they separated you out when it came to some things, like Reading, into the advanced, the regular and the needing help groups. I was always in the advanced groups.

When London brings her homework home, sometimes, most times, it's a challenge. Tonight was especially trying. I thought I was feeling better after my tonsillectomy, but talking London thru her homework almost had me in tears. There was like 7 problems and the very first one I had to repeat, I'm not kidding about 10 times one way, then I tried it a few times another way, then a few times a completely different way. By then my voice was barely a croak and it felt like I was being stabbed-so of course I was frustrated and so was she. Just on ONE problem. It's like she's not even trying half the time and that *really* frustrates me. She makes a big production of thinking, tapping her pencil, counting, and half the time, what she's counting has absolutely no bearing on the problem at all.

When she has a paper that is a mix of addition and subtraction, it's hit or miss if she's going to add or subtract on a particular problem. Or if the sum she puts down has any relevance to the problem at all-meaning, it's not even that she added when she should have subtracted, the problem might be 8+1= and she'll write 16 and I'm like HUH???

The last thing I want to do is make her think she can't do it. Or to get mad and yell or call names but wow, I was at my wits end this afternoon. It's like there's some sort of block there and I don't know what to do. I finally took her face in my hands and made her look at me and said "LON-DON LIST-EN to what I'm SAY-ING" and she started to cry and I felt horrible.

The problem in question: What number is between 46 and 53 when you count by 1's. 41, 57, 45, 52, 44. I tried counting from 46 to 53 and asking what number I said was in that line up. I had her count from 46 to 53. I finally had to walk away. We can easily spend 30 minutes on one sheet of homework w/7 problems on it. Sometimes she has 3 sheets of homework. Not counting nightly reading for tests every morning and spelling.

She seems to do ok in school. Not super great, but ok. Teacher hasn't said anything other than she has troubles sometimes with d/b, and that a lot of kids her age turn them around. She has friends, gets along w/the kids near as I can tell. There's a few little boys that fawn over her. No girls that I can tell that are outwardly mean to her or anything. I just don't get it.

Is it just that she wants to play when she gets home? She does have problems doing things wrong and by that I mean, she doesn't like to make a mistake so sometimes she doesn't volunteer to answer questions in school b/c she thinks she's going to be wrong, and she'll usually ask for help for everything she possibly can to make sure she gets it right. She's always been that way. Her preschool and Kindergarten teachers commented on it. She's always wanting approval and will do anything to make you happy.

So, I don't know. Am I pushing too hard and expecting too much? I don't want to be one of those parents that expects excellence from day one and puts so much pressure on her kid that they pull away and end up hating school. She loves school and I want to keep it that way.

Am I just overreacting? She's 7.

 

[MichelleCarmen]

What grade is she in? Sounds like 1st or 2nd?

The b/d thing is really common. When I was volunteering, many kids did that and outgrew it.

I'm not sure if you're overreacting, but it sounds like London does have a lot of homework if she's having 3 pages a night. Is that right or did I read that wrong? My 2nd grader has a packet once a week and also has a reading test. That's it.

Sounds like the school may be putting too much pressure on her. When kids are in school, they're basically working a full-time day and it's normal for them to want to come home and play and unwind. An hour of homework at age 7 seems excessive but I guess there's nothing that you can do about it (since we're stuck with the programs the teachers have set up)...If you, I'd just chill. Maybe let her have more control over her learning like picking out books at the public library where she can choose the reading level and develop confidence with whatever level she's at.

ETA - and I know how frustrating it is. When one of my kids isn't putting in the effort or having problems, I freak out...it's hard...really hard.

 

[packrat]

Thanks for the reply MC! She's in 1st grade. She doesn't always have 3 pages. Tonight was just 1 page, 6 problems and it took about 40 minutes. I went over and over and over that first problem and finally my voice gave out and I had to walk away. She did finish the paper on her own, but when I went back to check it over, almost all of it had to be erased and I had to talk her thru everything over and over.

I had her homework sent home for the week she was out for her tonsillectomy and we made sure to have everything done before I went in for mine. They do a "practice" sheet or two when they have Math, and they do cut and paste sheets for reading and other ones for spelling, so she had probably 30 sheets to do that week and we did almost 1/2 of them in 2 days, no dilly dallying, she sat down and wanted to knock them out. She had a blast and none of them took as long as tonight did. I don't know if it was just a case of she didn't want to do it tonight so wasn't going to try at all since I made her sit down and work on it or what.

 

[MichelleCarmen]

Yeah, sounds like tonight was just a night she wasn't in the mood especially since she was focused the other evening and has demonstrated concentration. Kind of like how us grown ups have a book we're reading and some nights we're up reading till 10:30 and other nights we don't pick up the book and are in bed at 9.

I wish I could give you some advice on how to motivate London. With my two kids it's a HUGE challenge but we do not have anywhere near as much homework as it sounds like your daughter has (even my 10 year old doesn't have that much) and so it is easier to complete everything with less drama (lol!). Have you gone into class and helped out so you can get an idea of what is being taught during class? My concern would be the teacher isn't able to cover everything and is passing the work onto you. Just a thought.

At any rate, London is 7. She's young and she'll be okay! She'll get the hang of things. Also, I think 1st grade can be a difficult year for children because they've been integrated in with the previous year full-day and half-day kindergarten students so they're basically starting over from scratch in the social department. MANY moms I've talked to have expressed this being an issue! (but my kids also go to a school with 550+ elementary students...)

 

[somethingshiny]

It honestly sounds like you just haven't found her learning style yet. Can you ask her teacher what she/he does in class that gets L to pay attention and/or really understand the info? There are all kinds of online assessments to determine learning styles too. She may even have a different style of learning for language and math skills.

Good luck. I hope you're able to cut down on homework time. I couldn't sit still for 40 minutes and do homework!

 

[lliang_chi]

Packrat, MC & SS, wow, you guys are super moms! I don't have kids yet, but I really hope I have the patience and energy to work on my kids homework after coming home for work... I'm kinda scared I won't...

Packrat, obviously I have no advice for you, but I'd just want to say hang in there. You're a great mom, and it's natural to worry. That's what moms do.

I personally can't remember doing homework with my mom but I imagine that I did when I was L's age.

 

[hawaiianorangetree]

Packrat, I just wanted to say that I feel for you and know exactly where you are coming from! Yesterday I was ready to rip my hair out with homework duty.

The only thing I can really think of to help is to make sure that London has had a big enough break between school and homework time and to make sure that she has had something to eat and drink and a little bit of a rest/play before starting. Hopefully she will be refreshed enough to concentrate on the task at hand. If you find that both of you are getting frustrated, leave it for a bit and come back to it later.

Also, if you think the homework may be something that she hasn't covered before and isn't understanding it, talk to the teacher. It wouldn't be the first time I have seen a child come home with a homework sheet that involves something the teacher hasn't covered before, especially if it has been downloaded straight from the net. Homework should be a revision or extension of something already learned in the class, not a new subject that hasn't been taught by the teacher before.

My daughter does lots of silly things like you were describing, adding the sums instead of subtracting, silly stuff that is a result of laziness or lack of concentration (or both!) and it drives me crazy sometimes. Finding the patience to deal with it after working all day isn't easy either. Sometimes she puts it on and acts like she doesn't know so that I will hand her the answer and she doesn't have to do it. Today she was trying that out with dictionary definitions with a list of words. She was claiming they weren't in the dictionary so I would come and find them for her. I looked for a word without giving it away where it was on the page and said that it was there and left her to it. She finished the page in about 15 minutes when she realized I wasn't going to find the words for her.

Good luck and I hope it starts to get better for you both soon, we have a lot of homework years ahead of us!

 

[MichelleCarmen]

Packrat, MC & SS, wow, you guys are super moms! [/color]I don't have kids yet, but I really hope I have the patience and energy to work on my kids homework after coming home for work... I'm kinda scared I won't...

Packrat, obviously I have no advice for you, but I'd just want to say hang in there. You're a great mom, and it's natural to worry. That's what moms do.

I personally can't remember doing homework with my mom but I imagine that I did when I was L's age.

lol Thanks. Actually it's hard for me to have the patience and I really relate to Packrat's posts. It's frustrating when my kids don't cooperate AND we do have drama issues, as well. Both kids get packets every week which helps because they can pick which sections they want to do and spread the work out. It's the bigger stuff like the book reports that drive me insane. I always read the books he's assigned for his book report and knowing he's leaving out fundemental parts of the story line and refusing to include them has caused a few small tiffs between him and me.

Not sure how common this is, but because my older son's class has 27 students, the teachers hand out the packets and the parents are to correct the homework. So, after my son finishes, I do that, but when he's done, he IS done as far as he's concerned and he refuses to look back at his mistakes....AHHHH!

 

[packrat]

Thanks for weighing in guys!

MC, I like the idea of having a packet, moreso than bringing things home now and again. Some nights she has 1, some 2 and some 3-and I've only got one day a week that I work at the office, usually until 6, so I can't imagine how it would be for a full time outside the home mom to come home and still have all that homework to help w/every single day. When I had her homework brought home for the week she was off, sure it was a lot, but I separated everything out and the she picked out what she wanted to do and I didn't have to fight w/her even once.

Shiny, the learning style thing..JD and I were talking a couple weeks ago about his school experiences being so different than mine. He didn't have a parent that encouraged/helped him, and he had a hard time in school and seemed to be "written off" and he always felt he was..dumb, you know? So, when he got a little older and had dropped out of school, when he went back to get his GED he learned that some people have different ways of learning things. He had someone who wanted to take the time to help him find his groove and once he did, it was a completely different school experience. We discussed maybe London learns differently, like JD does. I don't know how a person figures that out, but it's something to look into for her.

lliang, thanks so much! It's really a thrill to help w/school work and see the shine in her eyes when she "gets it"-makes me really happy!

HOT, thanks, I'm glad mine isn't the only one who does stuff like that! I probably did it too when I was younger. I'll try doing different things-a snack first, maybe some play time and then homework and see if that helps.

I'm going to see about volunteering in her class starting next month too. The mom of one of her friends goes in once a week for an hour and helps kids w/their sight words and London has mentioned to me a few times that she wants me to come too. I do want to be involved in her class and the school in general.

 

[zoebartlett]

Packrat -- I'm sure London probably has a name tag on her desk with a number line on it, and perhaps shapes, an addition table or hundreds chart, and other things on it that the kids can use for help if needed. Maybe you could ask her teacher if she has an extra one so London can use that to help her with math problems. She could look at the number line or the hundreds chart as she's doing her homework, and she'd be using a tool that she's so familiar with because she sees it (and presumably uses it) everyday at school.

You could also google "hundreds charts" and print off a few for London. I'd suggest (if you don't mind!) working with London to find patterns in the number grids. You could print off a few or get one laminated and work with London on finding patterns on the grid. I teach second grade but I've also taught first, and we spent a lot of time on that. We'd practice skip counting by 2s, 5, 10s, not only starting at 0 but at "random" places, like 17. As you and London skip count (by 5s, for example), you could color in all the numbers that follow that pattern. Then talk about she sees (oh, look, all of the second digits in this column or row end in 5 or 0!). That might help build London's number sense.

Most elementary schools probably have some sort of homework policy. Usually the rule of thumb is to give no more than 10 minutes per grade level. So, since London's in first grade, she should (in theory) not spend more than 10 minutes on homework. That might not be the case at her school, but if she's spending soooooo much time on her homework and both of you are getting frustrated, you could talk to her teacher. Maybe she could let London choose a certain number of problems to do and have her focus on only those. You could ask her teacher to send home math manipulatives so she has some hands-on tools that may help.

I'd bet that a part of it could just be that London's just tired from a full day of school and she's had it with school work. Again, I'd talk to her teacher and she if it could be modified at all. I'm sure her teacher would be happy to work with you.

Wow, okay, I wrote a novel. Sorry. I hope some of these suggestions might have helped.

 

[zoebartlett]

Here's another suggestion:

Kids love highlighters. They want to use them. For papers that have mixed math problems on them, why not have London highlight all the addition (or subtraction, whichever) problems before she begins solving them. That way, she won't mix up the problems since she'll be working on the highlighted (or unlighted) ones first.

 

[Mrs. Bojangles]

Hi Packrat!

Kids have so many up and down days! I agree with the poster who suggested looking into learning styles. Young kids often need to see/do math to understand it. The number line and/or hundred chart are great ideas. Do you have any math manipulatives? You can buy them at a teacher store or make them. Sometimes they will be little cubes, and then rods that are like 10 cubes stuck together, and maybe a big square that is like 100 cubes. That way they can "see" how math works, what place value is, what addition and subtraction are, and later on, multiplication and division and fractions.

I have some manipulatives, but before I had them, I made some for my son in K. I just used dried beans, gluing ten beans onto a popsicle stick, and then using the single beans for ones. Also, it is good to let the child play with the manipulatives and get familiar with them, besides just using them to do homework problems.

You can also buy fun math work books and even story books that have math themes. I'm not saying to add more work on top of the homework she already has, but you could curl up with a picture book about math. Look at your library, or go to Amazon and search for "books about math". I did, and a whole list of books came up.

I hope this helps at least a little. I've been there! Each child is so different, with her own learning style and pace. You sound like a great mom who loves her daughter very much. Hang in there.