Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Do you make your kids do all their homework?

I guess what I should say is - Do you make your kids do the "extra" practice sheets/"Try this at home" stuff. My DD is in 1st grade and there are only two real homework assignments they have to turn in each week: Math Worksheets and Reading Logs.

Yes, I make her do the assignments that need to be turned in, but then there are other "assignments" that don't need to be turned in. Some of them are spelling practice and the others are practicing some sort of Math triangle formulas (from the Everyday Math curriculum). I don't make her do these. I never made her do these because I know she doesn't need the practice. I have never even discussed them with her.

Well, the other day, she came up to me, plopped down the math fact triangles and said "I'm NOT doing these. This is dumb! It's stupid to practice these when I already know them!"

I agree with your DD!

I don't make DS6 do any of the "try this at home" stuff unless he wants to. Occasionally his science teacher will send something home. Those he generally likes.

I made DS7 do all the homework, but I skip all the extra practice because he has already mastered the topic. If he has extra time, I would rather have him read a good book or play something in his level.

No but the "middle kid's" K teacher made a good suggestion. Instead of make a line from the picture to the word... cut out all the big words on the "extra" sheet and make them into sentences or use in a story with some of her own words added in extra. I think the goal is to manipulate whatever you can and then just supplement so there is a general sense of "doing homework". Although I'm very glad for your post because I've gotten away from thinking "do homework" ever since the bigger kid never seems to have any (does it on the 9 minute bus ride home).

Yes, we rework things sometimes, even the regular assignments. We have an ok from teacher to take spelling practice and do vocab/word meaning/origins lessons instead because that is definitely an area where practice is rarely needed for ds8.
When he gets the word sheet we definitely go over it, but if it's clear he's got them down, more spelling of the same just seems like a waste...also, why learn to spell the word if you are unclear on it's meaning?

Huh. We get homework for DS (now 6!) Monday - Thursday which did seem to be a bit much to me. DW got tired of forcing him to do this work ... which he has mastered so I think we've taken a few liberties with it ... like we generally ignore the homework and he gets afterschool work we (DW) assigns.

JB

When DS6 came home with the sight word list from K at the mid-year point, I made him read the words once and threw it away. Every week his Kindergarten newsletter says to practice that word list in addition to the one math homework sheet--we obviously don't do it.

The same thing has happened with his 1st grade spelling challenge words. He spelt them once for me (while he was in the shower no less) and we have not revisted that assignment again.

I do make sure he does the required math sheets and any projects that need to be turned in.

DS7 (then age 6) came home from 1st grade every day with a book he was supposed to read. They were stuff he could have read 3 years earlier, and not even good, fun ones. I asked for better choices, but was rebuffed by the teacher...and not gently!

One book had the exact same text on every page with one word change. DS6 sighed sadly when he saw it. He was really disappointed. It broke my heart. He asked, "Can I just read the first page and each word that is different?"

I agreed. He finished quickly and ran off to read something more developmentally appropriate.

Sad!

Yes, that is how I feel too. Thanks for everyone's replies --- glad to know I'm not alone

We had the same situation this year. I asked and asked for different books. Finally, at report card time I wrote a letter to the teacher requesting more challenging books. It was a formal letter - as I'm a business person -- not a schmaltzy-touchy-feely type of person. Well after a few weeks we were invited to a meeting to "discuss." Oh good lord, the meeting included not only the reading resource teacher and the 1st grade teacher, but the guidance counselor AND the principal!!! They thought I was all mad because I sent a letter that was straight to the point, and not touchy-feely.

The good thing is that at least the reading resource teacher acknowledge that DD6 hit the ceiling of the reading test (grade 4). But they will keep her and 2nd grade level books so she can develop a "deeper understanding" of these books ---

Well at least one grade level ahead is something --- I'll keep fighting

I sometimes have trouble figuring out my son's homework and have to bite my tongue when he says it's "stupid"-- because it is.

Argh! Sad, but so true!

At first, we stopped ds7 from saying the homework is "stupid". After a while, I am saying the same word about his homework. Not a very good example to set, but I had a worksheet came home from school last week about odd and even numbers, when ds is already doing multiplication, division and beginning algebra.

Arg, hate that!


Why, why, why??

And I bet it was even single digit numbers

The short answer- YES. I make him do all his homework

The long answer is that his teacher doesn't believe in homework... or reading in school... or teaching to his level or... I could go on. (In an unrelated story, she took a book away from him during free choice because there is no reading allowed during free time) So I give him homework every Monday. When the packet is done, he can play video games on a school night. If it's not done, no video games! No discussion from me, it's just on the table Monday when he gets home from school. Some weeks he does it willingly, some weeks he does one a day, some weeks he grumbles on Thursday about missing his Wii and does it all before dinner.

Each packet has 4-5 parts- usually a math worksheet at his level or a math game, a writing worksheet (starting this week- a writing prompt), some sort of craft activity to improve his fine motor skill and a science experiment or website to check out.

I'm probably a really mean mom...

Or a really conscientious one who loves her son!

(In an unrelated story, she took a book away from him during free choice because there is no reading allowed during free time)

I don't know how to do the fancy little box to put this quote in... but can I just say that I blew Diet Mountain Dew out of my nose when I read this line? ROFL!

OK in my world, FREE choice means you have FREEDOM to choose what you want to do! Now if she's using free time to have kids work on social skills and his reading would interfere with that, it should be called Social Skills time and not Free time.

Well technically, she does not allow any reading at school. Seriously. They are only permitted to read the easy readers that she hands out during reading time. They keep the same book until they have read it aloud to a classmate 10 times. Then she assigns them a new one. That is 10 minutes 3x a week. The rest of the time, no reading allowed. Demonstrating that you can read in kindergarten is showing off and makes the other children feel bad. We must all assimilate... or something like that.

And yes, we are moving to a new school next year. Or homeschooling if we don't get in. We're #1 on the wait list.

CAMom, I so have my fingers crossed that you get a spot! We were in the same position last year -- awful school and first on the wait list for the Glorious Better School. It was agony waiting, but that spot came through ... I am so hopeful that happens for your little guy. Homeschooling might be an adventure, though!

CAMom -

All I can say is Wow! That is a bad teacher. Why doesn't anyone ever say, not allowing him to read what he wants makes HIM feel bad. My dd used to come home from school in tears in first grade because the teacher wouldn't let her read the books she wanted to read.

My DD had a meltdown looking at the books with my DH at the book fair because the teacher told them a certain bookshelf was "Only for the older kids and they were not allowed to look at those books..."

Hi CAmom,
I will be doing the same thing come Sept when we put DS in public, assuming he is not learning anyting.
We can't sit by and let their brains be wasted either.
I don't think there is any harm in doing some appropriate work after school. We banned video games completely during the week, we even got rid of the WII. The computer is better I think, will still let him have the NintendoDS but only on weekends. I hate that thing then he wants it all day.

in my sons school they make him do the stupid spell things and math triangles.....

it's tourture- but it only takes minutes.... i remind him how lucky he is that his homework is so easy for him and lement about how hard mine was for me.... how i had to walk to school through giant snow drifts up-hill.......... both ways.....

I do have my kids do all their homework. I think it's important for me to support the value of practice. Maybe DS doesn't need practice doing subtraction problems, but he does need practice writing his numbers frontwards, neatly, etc. So he is getting something out of it, and he is getting the message that there is benefit whenever he is putting forth effort of some kind. I don't want to get into a situation where he gets out of doing things just because he says they are "boring".

I make DS6 do his homework, but all those notes about "all students should be reviewing their spelling words...math facts..etc at home" are ignored. Of course, for my DS, it seems that homework is all the school work he does, so I suppose it isn't so bad.

Contrary to the horrible teacher CAMom was dealing with, our horrible teacher lets DS6 sit around and read whatever all day.

After working with many gifties in my profession who opt-out of many assignments and end up either fired or given boring work, I ensure that my daughter understands completing assignments. This is just habit for her now. Life is like this.

I also make sure that my children complete assignments. I am having a hard time figuring out a system for time management that puts the responsibility on them, so for now, I have to keep up with the schedule myself.

I wonder if any of you have any time management ideas for 6 and 7 year olds.

Please read my original question --- I do require my DD to complete the required assignments. I was asking if you require your kids to do the optional work - the busy work. To me, that is just a waste of time.

I have to respectfully disagree with your response. I find that the ones who do not do the tedious tasks, are more efficient. I have worked with too many people that do not work efficiently because they are doing all the busy work. For example, years ago, I had a manager quit, who was working 12 hours a day. I had to pick up all his work. I completed it in 8 hours a day. Which is working smarter: Working Longer hours to complete a task because working more hours "looks good?" OR Being efficient? I believe in spending your time doing productive work. Our society rewards "working too hard, 12 hours a day, never taking vacation" rather than having balance...and I disagree with that.

I won't make my daughter do something if it isn't productive. There is no point in doing work if it does not provide some sort of advancement (i.e. learning something new, completing a project, etc.)

I agree with you, BeckyC. I think we have to support the teacher, but if the homework assigned is generally pointless and soul-killing (and certainly so if it's optional!), making the child do it isn't always the best choice. That just teaches the child that BOTH teacher and parent are unreasonable.

Ahh, reasons we chose to homeschool...Now when he gets homework, I know it has value, and so does he!

There are certainly times when busy work is a necessity. But I have a hard time thinking that schoolwork in elementary school is that time. FWIW...

I think we had the same manager~lol! I worked with this guy who would claim many hours of work, lots of it from home (I am an advocate of wfh, btw) but I always had to wonder about his claims of checking on the system in the middle of the night because after he left I would check the system and it was always just humming along. Very stable, which is what the clients wanted. He also always had us in a chronic state of emergency this or that, sort of fluffing up the importance of his work as well as the hours, from what I could tell.

If work is tedious, folks who can will figure out better faster ways to do things. Eliminate the inefficiencies, automate the stuff that has to be done but can be done by a program or script or machine. Even just documenting stuff can improve speed: document procedures which have to be done over and over rather than seat-of-your-pants it each time and take twice as long.

In our case, the required work is usually the "busy work." The optional stuff is usually where there are opportunities for creativity and exploration. So yes, I have my kids do the optional things, too, like science fair projects, releasing trout in the lake last Saturday, writing a book for the Young Author's contest, doing art projects, writing book reports on what they've read, making a model of a California Mission as extra credit, etc.

I absolutely agree with you. I have listened to my husband complain about having to fire people who are good at looking busy but don't really get anything done. These people are good at making up their own busy work and I wonder if they are so comfortable doing busy work because they had to do so much of this in school. After the busy workers were fired, it took my husband about a third as much time as it would have taken the previous employees to finish the work they left uncompleted. He was able to do this while also doing his own job.

I think if people, kids included, are allowed to do a job in the way they find most efficient for them, whether it is learning something new or working at a paid job, as long as the really necessary work gets done and it is done in a way that meets or exceeds standards, things just work out for the best.

If people are allowed to learn or do their work more efficiently, then there will be time for doing the things they really want to do. I think being allowed time to do what you really want to do and finding balance is important for mental and physical health.

My son has heard stories from his dad, me, and other family members about working at government jobs where there was a lot of inefficiency and time wasting. He heard his dad complain recently that his fired busy workers with nice physical attributes got jobs with the federal government when he knew of more qualified veterans who could not get jobs there. When I worked for the federal government years ago, it was common to see people who couldn't really do the job getting promoted for their physical attributes and I remember thinking that it might be a better investment to get breast implants than more college but I refused to do it. But someone has to actually get the work done and they will always need smart people who can do the work, do it efficiently, and have the intelligence to make suggestions for improving efficiency. This is one reason my husband, at an age when a lot of people have trouble finding another job after retirement was able to find an even better job than he had before. He is the experienced problem solver and the designated trainer of new employees because of his ability to teach efficiently. He used to think it was important for kids to do the busy work but he and I have changed our minds about a lot of things since we had our son.

By the way, I did make my older daughter do every bit of her homework, and well, I just can't see that it did her much good. My stepson wouldn't do the busy work or if he did, he wouldn't turn it in. He got his GED instead of finishing high school. He learned much more outside of school than he ever learned in school.

Sheesh! Someone fire that woman and bar her from ever working with children again.

Sometimes the stories on this list remind me of the everyday cruelties inflicted on children in 19th century novels (ex. anyone remember the rule at Jane Eyre's school that the girls couldn't curl their hair? The headmaster cut off a girl's hair because it curled, in spite of the teacher saying that it curled naturally.).

Val

I am not requiring hours, just output. I am really speaking of the reports and other boring pieces that are to be completed after the exciting part of the assignment.

My daughter has always been expected to do any bonus work. This is due to the fact that she can do it. It is now a mindset and she sees herself as a person who goes above and beyond. If a student does not view him or herself in this way early on in their education, this is hard to instill later when the work is important.

At the age of eleven she may argue a little, but she knows deep down that she will complete it. This is now a part of her character. She even invents it if it is not there. At her parent/teacher conference last week, her teacher said that she asked if she could add a new word to their words each week. This is just between the two of them and her teacher is enjoying it and is learning new words herself. I believe this to be the bonus to everyone for instilling this in her.

I am so glad to see others struggling with this question. After a half a year of tedious required practice that my DS could have done 2 years ago, I seriously considered replacing his homework with work that I generate (and yes, I am a licensed teacher). However, we have required DS7 to do the work that is sent home while we continue to fight for work that actually meets his needs (making slow but sure progress there). We do not require the "extra" assignments because DS7 is involved in plenty of enriching activities that are usually better than what is sent home anyway...and he is slow as molasses so he seldom finishes anything fast enough to do the "extra" work anyway.

DS6 requested around Christmas "could the teacher at least give him harder homework!". Luckily, though, she agreed - even though they have so far turned down grade skip. She let us make it up, and even approved of our choices. However, now I almost feel guilty for giving the "extra work" - unless DS6 is in his happy "I want to do it mode" - and therein lies the key. I have to say teacher even let him submit those invisible ink pen puzzles, in addition to some first grade Math, English and "what your kid should know by first grade" work. You'd think they would take the hint - but no! We even included Grade 2-3 Dorling Kindersley Math - another hint- STILL no Grade skip! Writing is the big monster I can't get around - and I've yet to try typing. So, instead we tried dictation at a coffee shop 3 weekends ago. However, I realised that as he was waiting for me to write down what he said, he made his story shorter than it would have been otherwise. So now we are using vidoe camera to capture story on any topic of interest, and part II will be "type or write" it down - possibly in stages! Push to replace boring homework I say!!

It's a huge struggle to get my DS6 (in Kindergarten) to do his homework because it's "boring" (and I have to say I agree, but I don't share that with him!). But some of it is practicing writing his letters and he really does need that. So I do make him do all of the homework. But I also reward him with some computer time for completing the school work.

(By the way, I usually make copies of DS6's homework sheets before he completes them and I give them to DS3 to also do while DS6 does his homework. They are that simple... sigh! Although DS6's teacher is starting to send home some harder math every once in a while... Next year DS6 will likely be in a grade 1-2 split class, so hopefully there will be more challenges. If not, we may homeschool...)

A tip that might work for writing - as nearly every boy on this site seems to be having that quite normal for boys problem: link the writing to something else they LOVE! e.g. - my brilliant DH made a connection between DS6's recent fascination with the new "chalk markers" his teacher had at school, the white board markers DH has in his office at home and the Thomas The Tank "white board" we had already provided iwth pens ages ago for DS6. It turned out the key to getting DS6 to follow the arrows on his white board was as a simple as a new set of whiteboard marker pens! He sat for an entire 4 hours during one of his suspensions having a great time doing what he hates most -writing.

The clues to what "turns them on" are often right infront of our eyes -but we have to turn ourselves on better to pick up on the clues !!

Oh - DS6 also loves chalk from spring - fall on the driveway - very good for math I find.

Jelly Beans - how simple can life get. Write now - jelly beans after dinner or on a Friday night for ALL the completled assignments are working wondesr. Somtimes, its lovely taht they are still 6 and so easy to please!! We have 2 flavors of blue - former favorite color. DS6 LOVEs to read the back of the bag as part of the treat - for some reason he always obsesses over "collections". So in this case, he can read every flavor, before it was reading every Thomas train in the collection in those tiny brochures, or studying every detail of a DC comic hero set...or studying all the available LEGO in the Clone Wars set ....the list continues.....

Homework in elementary school is truly a character building assignment. If students know there is an escape clause (boring or too hard or fill in the blank), then they will begin failing classes later on when you cannot change their minds.

I have had a few gifties who hate homework and were not made to do it because it was boring. They are on the failing list every week and never get to do any of the great programs offered due to this character trait.

Somehow 'character trait' seems a bit judgemental (nothing against you El, it just sounds off to me). There have been times when my son truly suffered through work that was a repetition of stuff he knew. I sometimes regret making him do it. I think he was turned off from math due to this and is just now seeing his way back into it. Boring repetitive work can be downright harmful and I think the practice of withholding harder work unless easy/boring is complete is not good. Kids need to be placed well for them and the schools to really shine.
Otoh, my son does like to do all his homework; maybe this was instilled by me being so firm earlier, but I am not sure there are that many parents out there as mean as me.

Have you read any of the recent spate of books discussing the body of research evidence on this issue, such as Bennett and Kalish's The Case Against Homework and Kohn's The Homework Myth?

I've always been suspicious about the value of homework on the purely anecdotal grounds that when I was a child, homework in primary (elementary) school was practically unheard of, but that I don't think my generation is especially characterless. The authors I mentioned clearly have strong views, and on other topics I know Kohn at least can sometimes be a bit selective with the research he cites - but I have looked, a bit, for research that genuinely shows positive results from homework for children of this age, and I've never seen any that was convincing. What there's a lot of is research that shows a correlation between completing homework (if set) and doing well. That's utterly unsurprising, and doesn't show that the homework causes the children to do well. If you know any, I'd be interested in citations.

We're very happy to have DS in about the only school in our city that doesn't give (compulsory, written) homework to children of this age. Indeed the head has been vocal about why, and about the fact that the school's results improved after he introduced this policy.

Colinsmum - intersting point, I actually veered away from putting ds into a international bacclaureate program here because although some stuff sounded great, I was told by several folk that there was a big emphasis on homework, lots of it. I just knew that this was not for ds. Not to be soft on him, he just doesn't need that, in the way I felt it was going to be done. He needs play time and lots of it, and to move forward at a fairly brisk pace through material. Some practice, yes, but not a couple years of addition. Sigh.

I agree. The big focus on homework in the early grades is a relatively recent development in education, and I don't think it's a positive one. Especially if the work is below what a child is capable of doing.

FWIW...

I make my child work hard, but I make him work at things that we both agree are valuable and necessary. That doesn't mean he always wants to do it--he is a kid!--but he gets why it is required of him and he values the learning that results from the work.

That, to me, is character-building.

Work tends to be either necessary or unnecessary. I have no problem with teaching my children to do work that is boring but necessary--like cleaning their rooms and studying new vocabulary words, for example. THAT builds character. But I will not require them to do work that is unnecessary. All that teaches them is that parents/teachers are illogical and that either the kids must ignore their own good sense and kow-tow to us, or they should rebel against us.

Neither is the kind of character I want to build...

Yes, true. Though I confess that I'm not really in love with the idea that a person should just do whatever dumb thing they're told by whatever authority figure tells them. I'm not a big fan of sheeple, even for young kids. There's a difference between respecting authority and allowing one's self to be disrespected by it.



Too, I suppose I'm really coming at it from a different perspective, since one of the reasons we're homeschooling was that *I* couldn't stand how much useless homework DS7 was bringing home. Hours of it! At age 6! And not one bit of it useful or necessary!

We spend about as much time on school now as we used to spend just on homework--after 7 hours of school!--and he's actually LEARNING stuff! The whole homework enterprise just seemed like a humongous waste of time to me.

<shrug>

I know I'm in the minority on this particular opinion of mine. I'm okay with that.

I encourage my son to prioritize his work, and to use his own very good sense in deciding what he needs to spend time on, and to only spend time on those things he really needs to work on, which means cutting out anything that would be busy work for him and to challenge himself. To challenge himself he finds harder things to work on than I would have assigned and he is happy to show his dad what he has been doing and learning at the end of each day.

My stepson, now 34, was made to do busy work. He hated school, dropped out because he wasn't learning anything. I talked to a kid who was in my son's musical class and is now in his first year of college. I know he was made to do all homework including busy work, but he got to college and put writing assignments off until the last minute and had to drop out of a class.

If doing homework and busywork is good for kids, why is it that it seems like the younger generation has less of a work ethic than previous generations?

My son gets enough lessons in character building in helping me provide respite care for his grandmother. It doesn't matter if he or I have a really bad headache or are sensitive to smells, we do what we have to do and we do the best we can without complaining, because family and their needs are always priority.

I told my son's piano teacher about our priorities and why he sometimes doesn't practice as much as he should and she understands, but I think a lot of people don't.

I agree with what you are saying regarding blindly following instructions. My motto in life is "Question EVERYTHING."

It's our job to help our kids think for themselves, not do (or not do) something just because someone said so. Again, certain homework assignments provide useful practice while others waste our time. Right now, I'm not going to require my DD6 to do something that does not provide any benefit.

This is going off on tangent a little bit --- here's some psychological studies to consider:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment


I want my kid to be the one who responds with "Heck, no! I'm not doing that." I live my life that way - a lot of people think I'm nuts for starting something or quitting something, but I know what is beneficial for me and those around me.

I've told my students over the years, that there is always a choice but be prepared for the consequences. If you don't do your homework, I don't really care. But do not have your mom come in here whining because you got a C on the test. Because I will make you turn to her and say "I chose to get a C because I didn't do my work, study or pay attention."

Granted... most of our kids here would probably still get the A...

For me, character building is learning to be able to understand the choice, recognize the consequences of all the possibilities and make a decision.

I agree with Kriston- I don't like kids who follow blindly because an adult told them to do it. We actively teach DS to question authority, to argue for what he wants and to engage in the world around him. Does it make for heated discussions in our house? Absolutely. But you know what? Sometimes he's right and I'm the one being stubborn...

I make DD* do all the required homework and the past few months I've added Aleks. I should say that this has never been very much though and usually value added, we've been lucky. This year our teacher doesn't believe in Homework with the exception of a few writing assignments. We did do a science project after a little debate and figured out she wanted to do a project but didn't want to present so we made a video for her class, it was fun. We do ignore the read 15-20 minutes a night because when she does read it is for hours. I have backed off on the "enrichment" which is extra, (a camping cluster). At first I thought we should do it, but she showed no interest and it didn't seem value added.

As for the sheeple, at our house we are trying to balance too much natural questioning ability and attempt to teach them that they need to follow instructions. I wouldn't mind a class on how to squelch the debate, LOL!

Thanks everyone - you've either made me chuckle or made me super grateful for the small changes DS6's teacher has allowed this year. As I've always been a rule follower as well as a rebel (strange contradiction) I don't feel entirely 100% comfortable ignoring the "Kindergrams" - and I printed out the entire curriculum before school started - so that even if we were doing our own "at your ability" learing plan at home, I could keep in touch with what was expected at school.
Last night we sat and spelt out the "sight words" instead of just reading them - which went GREAT! I always underestimate how hard it is for our little ones to actually write and how different a skill it is from reading. Out of 29 words, DS6 needs to work on 4 - but it was a start - he sat for at least 7-10 minutes, did some bouncing - sat some more. I consider this is a major achievement as this was our first "formal" session.

I was majorly annoyed to discover there was "no homework" at all for the last 2 weeks as its "science project time". Science Project is "making a pet" - are they seriuos??!! You "must do this, that and the other" - "Oh great!" - the rebel in me says. (I think
it's because I had the type of personality that just "sucked it up" and made myself get through the boring tedium of every day and all the homework that I'm such a rebel about things now! I hate when I don't get what I personally consider to be enough notice about school projects!!)

Anyway - I got over myself - and we created a beautiful tortoise from pumpkin shell and clay this weekend - and it turned out DS6 had missed his art project making an animal from clay, and was also totally excited by the clay! So a seemingly annoying thing turned out to be a pretty good laugh and we had tons of fun! We have killed 2 curriculum requirements with "one stone" - but again - I just think work with what you have - enhance it - think outside the box - and rebel when necessary!

At the same time - I agree with MON & Kriston - it's a hard balance to teach your kids responsibility - but also allow them to "rebel" enough to flourish in the way they need too. I don't see it as productive to tell kids plain "no- don't the requirement" or "rebel for the sake of it". The original question of course was - do we do the "extras". I think they are worth looking at - and enhancing - but freedom is everything in this area - and those little "cut these words and make a sentence" things have never worked for us!! I think they are good if repetetion is needed for an "average" learner and a patient parent.

Hi Jen,
I am sure when we switch to public it will be a nightmare!!
If it really does only take a few minutes fine but the gifted public might be 2 hours of 1+1 and CAT HAT LOL!!
That I will not stand for. He can do 2 hours homework, read a chapter book and do mult and division but I refuse to let him sit there and do work he did 4 years ago LOL!!! He is 6!

We have Everyday Math here, too. I have to say, even though DS6 doesn't need any of the stuff they do in his 1st grade class in that program, it does impress me in one way. I had nightmares thinking about what I was going to do with the math program that the school had the year before he started there--my neighbor's 5th grader had the most horrendous math book you ever saw, and there was no way I was not going to end up battling them over that junk! But Everyday Math at least does not force kids into doing things in one particular (and non-traditional) way; it focuses on how many different ways there are to get answers, which I see as a good thing. I haven't had to deal with it for any advanced stuff yet, though, because DS6 just does his own thing with his math and uses several different books that his teacher gave him that are not necessarily related to the actual school program of math.

All that aside, I see that I have gotten totally sidetracked by the mention of math triangles, LOL!

No, we take most of the homework (spelling pages, sight words, busy fluff) and toss it in the trash. We do the regular homework page in about two minutes and forget about the rest. He just finishes that so he can hurry back to his 4th grade math or algebra books that he really enjoys.

This reminded me of a homework assignment from my daughter's first grade year. She was to take a book from home and find all the verbs. I am not a person who enjoys talking about potty humor.

She immediately looked for "Once Upon a Potty", which has the most unique "doing" words in it. She won - we laughed our way through verbs. I still chuckle when I think of verbs.

I do make my child do all of her homework. She also has to do chores and keep her room clean. Most of those things are boring but I believe that she is learning responsibility and real life lessons. One day she will have a job and the ability to perform mundane tasks with pride will be needed.
I will also note that we do go to a magnet school and our homework is more challenging than regular school.
And as for extra worksheets.. That is usually child led, if she comes to me and asks me to show her something new or give her a work sheet, then I do.
Potty verbs... now that is funny!