Homework

Getting Hannah and Will to do their homework can be a challenge. With Hannah, you have to make sure she does everything she is told to do. Now, doing work the teacher gave her like worksheets is not a problem. She flies through them and usually does a great job with very few mistakes. The difficulty lies in the work I give her. I have Hannah write her spelling and vocabulary words (with the definitions) three times each every day to make sure she knows them. She likes to rush through them and doesn't pay attention. She would rather play or aggravate her brothers or her friend Gracie.

Man, it's a chore to get Will to do his homework. I have to sit beside him the whole time and make him do his work. He has to practice writing the letter the class is working on for the week. Today, this exercise took over two hours to practice writing the letter S on four lines. If I leave the room or start working on something else, Will stops what he is doing and starts to play. Even if I am helping Gracie or Hannah with something on their homework, Will starts playing around because my focus isn't on him anymore. AUGH!!!

When we come home from school, I usually get the kids to sit at the kitchen table and work on their homework. This way it is over and done with and they have the rest of the evening to play. It comes in handy when one of the kids has practice, like soccer or baseball, because I don't have to worry about getting homework done along with getting a bath and ready for bed. I need to figure out what schedule works best for Will. Tonight, he finished his letters (and his homework assignments for the rest of the week) after we came home from his friend, Will G's birthday party. There was no arguing and he did it fairly quickly. The bad thing about letting Will do it later is it makes his bedtime later because of baths and other bedtime rituals.

Changing the subject, I have the names of the kids' soccer teams. Hannah is on the Wildfire team and Will is on the Tigers. They each practice on a different night. Hannah's practice is on Tuesdays and Will's is on Thursdays. What fun for me and Andrew!!! At least on Tuesdays I'll have someone to talk to and Andrew will have someone to play with. My friend Tracy will be there while her son Will practices then. Her youngest, Seth, is four days younger than Andrew and they like to play together, at least as well as 19 month old boys play.