My 2nd grader

Nothing exciting going on 'round here. I've been pretty busy. Working at the shop takes up my mornings, the little one and I have lunch and play and then the big one is home. And for the big one, her afternoons are spent on homework. On a normal day, she has 60-90 minutes of homework, every day. That's right. She's in 2nd grade and has that much homework. Most of the time she's not even playing around, that's how much she has on a regular basis. She has an assignment with her spelling words, we go over her vocabulary, she has a story to read and I have review questions to go over with her and she has math practice on the computer on a couple days. (that assignment has actually been cut back, originally it was supposed to be every day, now it's 2 units a week) It wears me out and I'm not even the one doing the assignments. No, I'm the one who reviews everything she's doing and also keeps the little one busy so she can concentrate. That's a tough job by itself. ;)

It seems a little excessive but what do I know? It's been a long time since I was in 2nd grade. Although, I do remember at my swanky private school (that's what my husband calls it) we didn't have homework. We did all our assignments in school and I actually wanted homework because all my n'hood friends did, I thought it sounded cool and that's what the "normal" kids did. Yeah, I was the only one on my street to go to aforementioned school. My 1st grade teacher actually lived in my neighborhood, which I thought was pretty neat.

Anyway, my daughter doesn't really complain (much!) and that surprises me. Last year, it was like pulling teeth to get her to do one assignment a day. Really. You'd think her teacher and I had come up with a punishment worse than death when it came to homework. I often had to tell her that if she didn't finish her homework, she couldn't play with her friends. And her response was, on many occasions, to whine and cry and tell me how much she hated me. I don't think I've gotten that response this year. It's like night and day between last year and now.

I really didn't expect the 180 difference I see now. She is in a class with "above average" students and is challenged on a regular basis. Maybe part of the change is because she knows she can't slack like she's done in the past. In a classroom full of other kids at her level, she knows she has to keep up. Maybe it's related to her maturity. Maybe her sleep and nutrition is a bigger factor than I'd originally thought. Whatever the reason, it makes school and our afternoons much smoother.