Oh God - will this be my life now? First night of Yr 2 homework took 55 mins and was like pulling teeth.

[Budababe]

Last year had a book to read and some spellings.

This year - book to read and on Mondays get some homework sheets to be handed in on Fridays. So decided to do a bit each night. Tonight's sheets were one with 5 sections of "words begining with ??" and "words ending with". Decide we will do 2 tonight and then only have 1 for the rest of the week. Other sheet has numbers and he has to fill in the missing ones. It was like pulling teeth.

First his writing is terrible and I kept making him rub out the really bad ones and the wrong letters. Tells me they are not allowed a rubber (eraser) in Yr 2. I say he is and if teacher has a problem she can talk to me.

Finally do word sheet.

Number sheet was not quite as painful but I did end up walking away to calm down.

Then he moaned about the reading book as he read it twice already today. Still got stuck on some words though so is now sulking as I said we will either do again in the morning or keep for another night.

How am I going to be able to do this for the next however many years?

And how does anyone with more than one child cope????

we get much less than this (yr 3) and it is still awful. don't know and will keep an eye out for answers here!

Oh budababe! I wish I could say it got better.... DD is great. DS#1 is and always was a nightmare - also does the moaning thing. Can't get him to understand that it isn't going to go away, moaning doesn't help and just buckling down is his best bet. And he's in yr 6.

oh yes...no actually ,as the year goes on hopefully the teacher will forget to hand it out

I wouldn' make him keep correcting work that is not as neat or not correct. Let the teacher do it - you may find he responds better to the teacher correcting/pulling him up. Many children, I think, do take more notice of the teacher re. homework that us mere parents!

Also if already read reading book twice, why does he need to do it again? If read it once and struggled, just write in his record book what he struggled on - teacher should then pick him up on these again next reading session, maybe setting some extra practise of the words he finds hardest.

"...how does anyone with more than one child cope"

hahahhahahaaa... er, cue more hysterical laughter, cue more, cue more....

One of mine is a perfectionist who insists that whatever I say about how to do it isn't quite right, not what the teacher really wants; other child is a lazy sod who HATES writing even 3 sentences.

They have to do hw before TV, that's only thing that motivates them.

If my dc's homework takes longer than 20 mins, we are encouraged to tell the teacher. Does the school have any sort of guidance like that?

Well I only have one child with actual homework, but I do have a jealous younger sibling, who insists on sitting on my knee and covering half the words up while DS is trying to read. DS gets his homework on a Friday so I try to get it done over the weekend, but it got left until about 6 on Sunday this weekend and you could tell DS was really not in the mood. But we had had a very active weekend.

We only get a sheet over the weekend - took dd less than 5 minutes, sequencing from any number chosen by parent. Spellings abnd reading tonight.

ds (Yr5) is doing his (Science tonight) and it is less painful than previous years but is more, every night and needs management so we make sure it is ready for the deadline. I don't correct his spelling mistakes (he is using a dictionary) or poor writing (he is writing in ink) any more tempting though it is.

omg he's just misspelt does [thunk]

This year DS#1 has had maths, literacy, and science. Each subject could have taken 20-25 mins if he had just got down to it...as it was we were sitting at the dining room table for over an hour whilst he thumped the table, wept, hated the teacher, hated me, hated stupid homework, asked why he had to do it and snarling at the other children when they interrupted us. How...simply how ..is he going to cope with secondary school??

Budababe, I feel your pain although we get much less.

We get the reading book (3 scheme books a week, 1 free choice, 1 library) which we move to bedtime to make it feel less "homeworky", so it feels like it takes less time even though it doesn't necessarily.

We get spellings every night (same word list for a week though) and that's getting less painful with practise (although the first night he hated it and was in tears).

And then a homework sheet gets given to us on Friday which isn't compulsory but we get done on Saturday ready to go back Monday so ds1 can earn his "homework merit". That wasn't too bad, but he was sick of school at the end of the week so there was a lot of resistance doing it on Saturday.

I wonder whether it would feel less like a HUGE time your ds has to sit down to do it if you do the book at bedtime or maybe first thing in the morning as routine?

TBH liz I find that the hardest bit - not correcting. DS managed to get 13 + 27 equalling 30 this week and I bit my lip. I think it was the only incorrect one on two sheets. DH was in the kitchen too and we just exchanged looks.

I am with Melontum all the way. The incentive is TV. No TV until they get their homework done - that's a brilliant rule to have for years 1-6 IMO.

Glad I am not the only one struggling!

Hulababy - he read the book twice in class with TA but is supposed to read it with a parent too. Take your point about correcting though - wondered as I did it should I let it go.

pointydog - will give it this week as it is first week but will def talk to teacher if necessary. Am class rep so no doubt will have other parents moaning discussing the issue too!

Noting the no TV till it's done rule. Will do that and then keep the reading book for later.

He will get spellings too tomorrow to learn for spelling test on Friday.

I don't remember my parents sitting down with me to do homework!

Your ds is probably thinking the same thing

For spellings there are computer programs you can put the spellings in and then they practise them. This works well with ds2 as it is more like a 'game', means he doesn't have to write the words down for each practise and I just leave him to get on with it.

Must say we have tears over homework sometimes (ds1 in yr3 and ds2 in yr2) but at least we get the weekend to do it so they can get one on one. ds2 usually picks dh, ds1 varies.

LizP that sounds good ... link please?

i don't think we got homework at primary school at all. did anyone else?

This one lets you enter your own list. Bright Minds also sell cds but haven't tried these.

Thanks for the link - will try that.