The Homework Box

Homework. Those are dreaded words. I think as dreaded by parents as by kids. Emma never really had homework last year - just read nightly. Which we did. Some. Mostly. This year Emma has "real" homework. And by real I mean she has a calendar with some activities to do Mon - Thurs. They take her about 5 minutes (then there is reading to do). She used to love homework but lately it's been a challenge to get her to do her work. She claims to not understand the problems or there are tears involved in finding materials to use for homework (i.e. when I tell her she can't use an orange marker or a scrap piece of paper to write on). Apparently actually having to walk upstairs to get paper is a horrendous activity at 4:30 in the afternoon. I don't remember having so much "homework drama" as a kid. Maybe I did and I just blocked it out.

So I decided we couldn't continue on this path. And while we have all the materials she needs for homework they weren't in one exact place (and by that I mean she actually had to look in 2 cabinets to get things). So today while girls were at school I made "homework boxes." For Lily, whose homework is just reading, I gathered a bunch of easy reader books, an egg timer and a star pointer and put them in her box. For Emma, I gathered a folder of notebook paper, pencils, erasers, a pencil sharpener and some chapter books in her box. I put them in the dining room, away from distractions. When the girls got home from school I showed them their new boxes. They loved it. Lily sat down eagerly to read and Emma did her work without complaint! Emma says, "Meri (her bff) has a homework box. This is great." Yay! Hopefully this will work for at least a little while and we can have at least a few weeks of tear free homework.