How much homework do you feel a grade 2 student should have ?

Canada
September 10, 2008 8:58pm CST
A friend of mine called the other day and was ready to have a nervous breakdown . The school year has just begun and she has a son in grade 2 and a daughter who just started this year . It was after supper and she was still trying to help her son with all his homework and still hadn't got to help her daughter yet who also had homework . She still needed to bath the children and get them to bed and still to help her little girl all before she went to work and yet her son had still not got a chance to play . He was very upset that he worked all day in school and had to come home and work all night on school work . She would not have had a problem with it if he had to read a book every day and maybe a little something else but like she said she was going to have no time at all to get everything done and her son was so agitated and she has a 2 year old and she had to keep chasing him around and just found it was much to hard . What would you have done in her situation ? Do you not agree that this is a little extreme for the grades they are in . I don't see the reason why a first year student should have any homework in the first week let alone a grade 2 student coming home and spending all day trying to finish his homework . How much homework do you feel a grade 2 student should have and do you agree that in the first week a first grader should have any homework ? What are the teachers doing all day if they have to send home all this work for the children where the parents have to sit down and help them all night with it ?
3 people like this
5 responses
@sedel1027 (17846)
• Cupertino, California
11 Sep 08
I can understand how stressed she is. My son had homework the first week of school and he is in 3rd grade. I believe he has always had homework the first week fo school though. Stupid question: why did she wait so late to start on his homework? My son gets to home home, rest for a bit and eat a snack, he has to do at least 1/2 of his homework before dinner he can either do that before or after he plays; I make sure that he gets at least 30 minutes of play time before dinner. He has to finish anything he has left immediately after dinner. We have tried letting him wait until after dinner and that just doesn't work out at all.
2 people like this
• Canada
11 Sep 08
She didn't wait she started as soon as he got home from school but was still doing it after supper that was how much he had to do . The first week just seems really early especially when they are in grades 4 and down . Thank you for your response .
1 person likes this
@sedel1027 (17846)
• Cupertino, California
11 Sep 08
I hope you don't think I am being rude, but is it really a lot of work? Here is why I ask: last year my son was in a different school, some parents would complain about how long their kids took to do homework (we knew 2 kids that would take 2-3 hours a night). When they would complain, the principal would say that they were not handing a lot of work out. To me, they weren't. My son would sit down and have his work done in 15 minutes. He is not a genius, he just wanted to get his work done lol. Every night his 2nd grade homework was usually 1 math sheet, writing spelling words, writing sentences, and usually reading or re-reading their story for the week. On Thursdays they had to do their book report (which was a sheet they sent home that was to be filled out) for the week and study for their Friday tests. The homework for the week was given out either the Friday before or on Monday so you knew well in advance what was to be done for the week. After a full school year a schedule like that sticks in your head LOL Some of this came down to the teacher. His teacher would go over everything in class and explain the homework before they left for the day. So when he came home he knew what he had to get done. All of his homework was just a quick over view of what he had done in class. Maybe once school gets going and she sets a schedule in place, they will have better luck with him. What about the children's father, is he in the picture to help out in the evening? If she is really concerned about the amount of homework, encourage her to talke to the teacher and/or principal. If she needs help trying to figure out how to get him to do the work, call the school board. Many places offer parent workshops.
2 people like this
• Canada
11 Sep 08
He actually is getting a lot of work . She read me what he had to do and he had something to do in every subject and he is a really smart child and is willing to do his work and would have been fine for an hour or two but after that he started to get frustrated and so did my friend . Which I completely understood . I suggested the same thing to her about going to see the teacher and she said she was going to do that sometime this week when she wasn't working . It is hard for her because she is often working during school hours . There is a father in the picture and I don't want to bad mouth him because he is a friend but he really doesn't help out at all and everything is left to her to do and she just can't manage everything on her own because there are three of them and she works full time and he does nothing around the house to help her out at all . She moved to an area and doesn't know anyone but her mother in law so she doesn't have a lot of help in that area to . I just felt so bad for her and could tell she was really stressing out over this and did find he was getting way to much work . Last year I went up to visit her and he had been home sick for two days and the teacher had sent home a bag of work for him to do . He was only in grade one then and had more then 10 hours of work to be done while he was sick for missing two days . He really was sick and my heart broke to see him trying to do all this while running to the bathroom getting sick because he didn't want his teacher to be mad at him when he got back to school .
1 person likes this
@relundad (2310)
• United States
11 Sep 08
If he is in the 2nd grade this should be at minimum in the US his 4th year of school. My son is now 9 and is in private school in AP class levels but when he was in the 2nd grade they would have the equivalency of one hour of homework. That is not to say that it doesn't take longer depending on the student, the environment that they are in, the distractions and the assistance that they have available to them. When he was in the 2nd grade they had homework Monday thru Thursdays beginning the very first day of school. Also on top of this they had required reading of 30 minutes for each day.
• Canada
11 Sep 08
That sounds more reasonable then what she has to contend with every day and like she said she could handle a bit of work but she finds her son is stressed out already with school and the school year just started . I felt really bad for her because I still have one in grade 8 and one who just started this year and neither of them have had homework yet . Thank you for your response .
2 people like this
@relundad (2310)
• United States
11 Sep 08
It is probally the fact that the kid has done nothing but play all summer. Thats one reason the schools start right back in is because they have lost so much during the summer. During summer months my son has the opportunity to do the day camps and play alot. But we still never take a break from education, otherwise they start out trying to remember and get caught up. But I am almost willing to be that it wasn't the amount of work that he had, but he was stressed, which probally stressed her and the other things going on in the household. If it was an unreasonable amount given to the whole class and the level which you describe, I am sure that parents would have complained. Also I can tell you that my son's work looks foreign compared to what I was doing at his grade level. For instance I don't remember doing book reports until I was in middle school. But he started in the 3rd grade. And these are no kiddie reports that I am talking about. So its really just a change of times that she had better get used to.
2 people like this
• Canada
11 Sep 08
It is true that they did nothing all summer to continue with school work and he has forgotten some of the stuff that he had learned the previous year and things are hectic at home but she read me the list and he had something to do in every subject and had in one subject had a whole booklet that he had to read and write which took him forever to do . By the way it sounded , it would have been more then enough for the night for a grade 2 student .
1 person likes this
@patgalca (18164)
• Orangeville, Ontario
11 Sep 08
In Ontario the school boards have a standard that they go by. Ten minutes per grade you are in. So that means grade 1 should have ten minutes of homework, grade 2 twenty minutes, grade 3 thirty minutes and so on. Whether the kid gets homework the first week of school or the third week, your friend is still going to have the other children to contend with. She is going to have to get a schedule worked out. When my kids were little we had them do their homework right after school. Then it wouldn't interfere with dinner preparations or getting the other one to bed.
1 person likes this
• Canada
11 Sep 08
She would be able to make a better schedule if she didn't have to spend all night with the little guy though because of all the homework he had for the night . I like the way they do it in Ontario , sounds like a reasonable amount of homework , whereas in her case they did it for hours and still had masses of work left to get done . Thank you for your response .
1 person likes this
• Canada
12 Sep 08
Thats sounds like to much homework for a little guy in only grade 2 . They should not be allowed to do this . I wouldn't make my kid do this much homework if they don't do it in school well then they can finish it the next day . all day in school is long enough when they are little that when they get home they should be able to play not have to do homework all day
1 person likes this
@mommyboo (13174)
• United States
26 Sep 08
I think ALL kids need to be given time in class to complete any work they are given. If the kids waste that time or just work slow and cannot complete things, then they can take it home. HOWEVER. I agree about the 10 minutes, except I think it should be 10 minutes maybe up to 30 minutes for all elementary students, and not 5 nights a week, maybe 2 or 3. I don't think giving homework the first week makes sense either, unless like I said before it is something that wasn't completed in class. Say they are given 8-10 math problems in class and they finish all but 2. They can finish the 2 at home in less than 5 minutes. If they get 10 spelling words or a page to do handwriting practice, they can practice 3 spelling words each night and then do a review of all of them on Thursday for a test on Friday. The handwriting sheet might take 5-10 minutes or less. The teachers should be teaching in class and ALSO giving an assignment WHILE THEY ARE TEACHING so they can help the students in class and they can see how well they are grasping a concept. I don't see how they expect the parents to do all this, WE are not teachers! People without degrees and credentials and who haven't passed the C-best or whatever cannot even SUB for a school much less be a teacher. If they won't let any ol Joe be a teacher, then they should never expect parents to teach at home. We send kids to school to be educated at school.
@mommyboo (13174)
• United States
26 Sep 08
Another complaint!! Everybody talks about how important it is for children to SLEEP! If kids need 10 hours or more of sleep every night, then there is no time for all this extra work outside of school. Kids are getting obese and lazy and sick because they also need to run around and play for at least an HOUR a day. Physical exercise =