Make-up Work

As a general rule, I detest having to do homework with my six-year-old. She seems to enjoy ignoring directions, refusing to focus, and rushing through those pieces of work that she has not already tried to hide in the recycle bin. That being said, the thing I hate more than having to do one night's homework is trying to do multiple days' worth of make-up work when she is out sick from school.

In the hopes that Rooster will return to school tomorrow morning, I had to bite the bullet and have her do some of the homework from the past two days of school. We just worked for almost two hours and still have a whole packet on habitats that will have to wait for after lunch. (Seriously, why does a first grade teacher send home work that cannot be completed without either Internet access or a science textbook? If the whole class had to fill it in together at school, why not at least give her the same information that the rest of the class had? Harrumph.)

We tackled spelling first. Let me rephrase: Rooster tackled spelling while I vacuumed the house. Spelling is the one subject that she is fully capable of doing everything by herself and then having me check it once it is completed. Three days' worth of spelling also takes about the same time as it takes me to vacuum the whole house. Huzzah!

After spelling came math. Normally, I love math. I love making sure my kidlets understand the concepts and feel quite proud of them when they succeed. This was not the case today. Rooster was supposed to measure a number of items using both a cube and a paperclip, neither one of which was supplied by her teacher. I did manage to hunt down a cube and a paperclip here at home, but I am sure her answers will be incorrect since she is not using the same units of measure that the rest of the class had. I decided I would send her in with the ones she used in the hopes that her teacher will actually check her work using the same units that Rooster used. (I'm not holding my breath on that one.) Because we used different objects, our measurements did not come out to nice, happy numbers. We wound up having to estimate Rooster's final answers rather than determining an actual measurement. Oh, well. At least she completed that work even if it will need to be redone in the near future.

Next, we moved on to the reading comprehension part of Rooster's homework. That assignment was a paper with instructions to follow the directions that six numbered sentences gave to her, then circle all of the words with the long a sound. ("Cake" would be one example, for those that forget what a long a sounds like.) Rooster demonstrated that she has absolutely no idea how to follow written directions. The first sentence told her to draw a pail next to the painter in the picture.

     Rooster: *circles the paintbrush*
     Me: "No, honey. What did the sentence tell you to do?"
     Rooster: "Draw a pail next to the painter."
     Me: "Okay, so erase that circle and draw a pail next to the painter."
     Rooster: *colors in the paintbrush*
     Me: "Why did you do that? You need to follow the directions."
     Rooster: *draws a pail on one side of the picture and nowhere near the painter*
     Me: "Rooster, where were you supposed to draw the pail?"
     Rooster: "Near the painter."
     Me: "Is that where the pail is now?"
     Rooster: "No." *erases the pail and circles the paintbrush again*
     Me: *tries not to sob*

That was simply the first of six sentences that my daughter completely ignored any and all directions that she was supposed to follow. You know how some people march to the beat of their own drum? I'm fairly certain my daughter is trying to use my skull as her percussion instrument of choice. Oy.

In case anyone is curious, today is the perfect example for why I do not homeschool. I love my daughter, but she and I clearly do not work well together when it comes to homework.