Where's All The Homework?!

Over the summer, when we were talking about back to school, part of the conversation was about homework. Both of my girls were looking forward to it. We're all a little odd here, but I used to love homework too. I loved all the ruled lines, colourful graphs, and neat rows.

Now that Kee is in grade one, she is finally going to have homework. She's been waiting for so long. When Beege started bringing home worksheets and projects, Kee would sit down with a colouring book or paper so that she could work alongside her. Last year, she took to reading the dictionary so that she could "prepare for all the homework in grade one!"

We decided on where homework would be done, and thought of some strategies to help stay focused. We agreed that a snack would be provided, and that assistance would be available. We bought new pencils to have ready and waiting. 

Sadly, we're in week three, and still nothing. For either of them.

So we've been trying to fill the time we'd earmarked for all that homework with something that seems homeworkish. We've been watching some great movies, and coming up with activities to do surrounding them.

The Lorax is a particularly good one for this, having many themes to discuss; loyalty and friendship, the importance of environmental protection, the slippery slope of greed. Also, it's got some really great songs. We've come up with offshoot stories, drawn our favourite parts of the movie, and talked about the ways that the Onceler could have "biggerred" his business while avoiding destroying the land.

Netflix has a great selection of recommendations this month for getting conversations started.

For the big kids:

       
     

1. Dr. Seuss' The Lorax
2. Ever After: A Cinderella Story
3. Glee
4. Radio
5. The Pursuit of Happyness
6. The Karate Kid
7. Turbo
8. Shrek

 

 

And for the little guys:

 

                              

1. Thomas & Friends: Thomas & His Friends Help Out
2. Monster Math Squad
3. Curious George
4. Super Why!
5. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
6. Signing Time
7. Animal ABCs
8. LeapFrog: Numbers Ahoy

 

(My nephew is particularly fond of Signing Time and Thomas and Friends, while my girls still have a soft spot for Super Why.)

Hopefully, some actual homework will start coming home soon, or I'm going to have to start making my own worksheets.

Which actually sounds really fun.

Oooh... I'm going to go do up some comprehension questions...