I know. It has been forever since I wrote. And there is very good reason for it. I am usually cleaning up the mess that I am now ignoring in order to vent my frustrations about take-home reading plans. Has anyone else read these "books" that are really just laminated pamphlets? In the words of Gru, "This is literature? A two-year old could have written this!"
I hate "Take Home" books. There it is. I said it. Well. Wrote it. I wrote it out loud that I despise the take-home system that involves a tiny paper "book" that they want to charge me $7.50 for when they put it in the care of a 4-8 year-old little boy. HOW STUPID IS THAT! I swear, its gotta be how they fund Area 51 or something. Along with $500 hammers the government uses. But in the hustle and bustle of "Where is your coat? And your other shoe? Did you go potty yet this morning? Let's get that peanut butter out of your hair...", I despise hunting down that stupid plastic bag! Every now and again I also see where they have sent the SAME book and circled the crumpled paper that is lacking my VIP initials.
I hate that bag. It is not for the benefit of my children, it is a torture device to parents. It is YOUR homework. I can open the bag, read the book with my child, sign off on it and tell them to put it back in their backpack. And I will find it tossed in the back of the car, or under a seat where NO ONE would ever find it who wasn't looking for a dead body! I believe there to be a group of individuals that come together and hold meetings about how they can lower the classroom size by forcing more kids into home school. Their dialogue goes something like this,
"But what can we do to utterly send them over the edge? We've been trying to get them with the cookie dough sales - but mandatorily sending home a packet that must be returned or they will forfeit $20 is just not enough. The mom's yank those from the backpack, and they return unopened 4 weeks later. UN OPENED."
"Yah Bob, I think we need to have something that doesn't look that packaged. We need to make them open it up, something small. Something fragile. And just do it over and over and over. Like a whole Alphabet's worth of tiny annoying things. But I love the back and forth. I am seeing some progress on the seriously stressed out mom front. We're looking at projections of 6-10 kids per class next year..."
Do I believe in reading? YES. Do I think that my 4 year old now understands what a "Qq" is by reading about a Queen, a Quail, and a Quilt that were Quirky? No. No I don't. I think my kid will learn what a Q is because he wants to read the instructions to his RC helicopter. Or Calvin and Hobbs. It has got to be a conundrum for the Elementary school folk how these poor depraved kids don't seem to have an "active" reading exchange program, yet can still reprogram an unattended computer to display random poop smears.
And where is the book they last sent home? Well, tell 'em Gru... "[Explaining why the girls can't find their book "Three Little Kittens"] That book was accidentally destroyed maliciously...
3 comments:
You're back!
I've missed you.
What are your feelings on homework in general?
I hate it.
I'm here! 4 kids is really my limit. I may have overcommitted...
As for homework - well, I have my prejudices. If it is work that the kid can do, so be it. But if it involves parental babysitting, then the kid who's mom is a professional scrapbooker or who's dad gave him a barometer for Christmas is gonna have a distinct advantage over the one who has to diantle his brothers history project in order to salvage some neon poster board for a science project.
But yah. I hate it. It's like I had to do it all myself when I was young & I have to do it again simultaneously at 4 different age groups. Makes hell seen like "Vacationland"...
Oooh, in Logan's last year of pre-school, when we moved him to a new preschool because he had done two years at the one we loved......they had a take home "Alphabet train." Every week they got 1 or 2 new cardstock pieces with a train car printed on it, and a letter in the train car. They wanted them to color this, and hang it on the wall to make a long train. But hanging it up was SOOOO important. And not just anywhere....they don't want it in their room, they want you to hang it up somewhere that they see a lot every day. Like, the living room, or the kitchen, or a stairway, or the entryway. Ummm, yeah. NO. HELLS NO. Most 4 year old boys don't like to color. Girls, yes. Boys, no. So each day, when Logan came home with one, I would promptly take it out of his backpack and throw it in the garbage. He could have cared less. Besides, he already knew all his letters. He could identify them and tell you the sound they made. Coloring a train isn't going to change anything. Then, about 5 months into the preschool year, a note comes home. "PLEASE take your childs picture standing in front of their Alphabet train for a project we are doing at school." Ummm, yeah, give me a "F" in parenting for that one. I took him to the school, and took his picture in front of the one at the school in their entryway. Not a word was said to me about it. LOLOL
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