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How much school work is your children doing?

BFIB

BFIB

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,645
My wife is freaking out because my daughter's school has a list of assignments for our child to complete. Me and my wife are both currently work from home, which we are thankful for. But by the time we both get off work, cook dinner, we don't have time to get all of the assignments done. I'm trying to comfort my wife, telling her that it's fine, there's a lot of parents going through the same situation.

Just wondering, how are you holding up with your kids schoolwork during the outbreak?
 
CarpeDeezNutz

CarpeDeezNutz

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
2,732
What grade is your kid in? I got a Pre-k and 3rd grader, my wife has the younger one and I make sure my 3rd grader turns in his assignments.
 
Rizific

Rizific

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,948
Did the school tell you that it's the kids that are supposed to do the assignments and not the parents? What are your kids doing while you are working? My child does 3 assignments per day, not nearly enough, but it's what was assigned. School sent out surveys asking about workload and I made sure to tell them.
 
Teenage Fansub

Teenage Fansub

Member
May 24, 2019
22,187
Kindergarten homework?!

edit: Oh. I guess you're doing the little activities they'd normally get throughout the day?
 
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Razgriz-Specter

Razgriz-Specter

Member
Oct 25, 2017
29,446
My 10 grade brother has no work.
The school was sending weekly packets home but once the situation escalated they said they can't give or receive them anymore
 
CarpeDeezNutz

CarpeDeezNutz

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
2,732
OP just make sure to turn in some work and your child should be fine, kindergarten is easy mode. Read stories and work on sorting and counting.
 

alex.magnus

Member
Oct 28, 2017
405
is this an American thing?
my parents have never done any of my homework. the only thing my mom did when I was in elementary school was providing me with the books I could use for my CCG homework to make sure I would not cut out pictures from expensive enciclopedias.

aside from that she would listen to me repeating what I had to memorize but that was it. I don't believe she ever spent more than 2 hours a week checking on my homeworks and that didn't last over my 3rd year of elementary school
 
CarpeDeezNutz

CarpeDeezNutz

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
2,732
alex.magnus said:
is this an American thing?
my parents have never done any of my homework. the only thing my mom did when I was in elementary school was providing me with the books I could use for my CCG homework to make sure I would not cut out pictures from expensive enciclopedias.

aside from that she would listen to me repeating what I had to memorize but that was it. I don't believe she ever spent more than 2 hours a week checking on my homeworks and that didn't last over my 3rd year of elementary school
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It's not an American thing it's a we have a pandemic happening and our kids are having to do school work at home. Never mind teaching your child how to do remote work they also have to do their assignments with additional help from their teachers and aides.
 
AppleBlade

AppleBlade

Member
Nov 15, 2017
1,711
Connecticut
My son (3rd grade) does it all on his own. It helps that his school has a 1 to 1 laptop initiative and they were already using Google Classroom heavily so he is very comfortable with it.

My daughter (1st Grade) is a different story. First, she's stubborn and difficult to coach. Since she can't read all of the instructions and various logins she needs an adult with her to do the work. It can take 90 minutes if we skip some of the more gimmicky "suggestion" activities but it can easily take 3-4 hours if we do all of it. There is just too much frustration with the longer approach. We're getting into more of a routine lately so as long as she does 20-30 minutes of reading, 20-30 minutes of writing, and 20-30 minutes of math I am satisfied. Additionally, I started her on a typing program. She should be a 40+ wpm touch typist by next year if we keep on going with that.

In addition to helping my kids, I'm also a high school teacher so I have a bunch of lesson planning and grading to do. As for workload I've been assigning 1 project (that would take about an hour) and 2 technology articles (They read an article and answer multiple choice questions about it) a week. That doesn't sound like much but the kids have 8 blocks at my school so if they are getting 8 times what I'm giving, I can see how it can get overwhelming.
 

alex.magnus

Member
Oct 28, 2017
405
CarpeDeezNutz said:
It's not an American thing it's a we have a pandemic happening and our kids are having to do school work at home. Never mind teaching your child how to do remote work they also have to do their assignments with additional help from their teachers and aides.
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I still don't understand, aren't the teachers doing their lesson online with the kids watching them and talking to them?
 
HylianSeven

HylianSeven

Shin Megami TC - Community Resetter
Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,036
I don't have any kids (yet, but even then they won't be of age for school during all this), but I have heard some horror stories about these. Lots of parents not prepared to homeschool at all, with both parents still working from home, the teacher just drops a lesson the parents have to teach in an hour or two plus a ton of work that's meant for an hour or two, and it seems more like something that would take a full day. Regardless though, the parents don't have time to teach their kids the lesson and do their full-time jobs. It's one thing if you elect to homeschool but the teachers should actually teach over video instead of just dropping it all on the parents.
 
Pau

Pau

Self-Appointed Godmother of Bruce Wayne's Children
Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,838
alex.magnus said:
is this an American thing?
my parents have never done any of my homework. the only thing my mom did when I was in elementary school was providing me with the books I could use for my CCG homework to make sure I would not cut out pictures from expensive enciclopedias.

aside from that she would listen to me repeating what I had to memorize but that was it. I don't believe she ever spent more than 2 hours a week checking on my homeworks and that didn't last over my 3rd year of elementary school
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I think this thread is about a completely different scenario.

So many of these assignments for young children require the use of technology that these kids don't really know. For example, filming a video of themselves doing the work and then uploading it properly to email or a web portal. It's a lot to ask for a five or six year old. It also assumes that they have access to such technology during the day. Maybe the family only has a limited number of computers, and they have to be used for work during the day. So many things that can be making this difficult.

And that's without going into the fact that much of the instruction is being pushed upon the parents. Young kids can't exactly read a worksheet or textbook to "self-learn" the same way that older students can.
 
Netherscourge

Netherscourge

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,904
My kid is doing the remote thing.

The teacher records a 7 minutes video for them all to watch each morning and then they go down a list of assignments to work on for an hour or two.

Then teacher does live chats with them individually and as a group when they need help. It's been rough.

They're learning long division over the internet and it's a nightmare not having a teacher in person helping them all in real time.

I don't think this is going to work long term. A lot of these Kids will have to refresh or repeat. It's a shame because they do so well in a normal classroom environment.

The pandemic has proven you can't substitute in person teaching with video recordings and "get back to me when you need help" arrangements. Doesn't work with 4th graders. Not my Kids class anyway.
 
Aadiboy

Aadiboy

Member
Nov 4, 2017
3,641
Any teacher that expects parents to be involved in their school work during this time sounds like a dumb dumb. The kid is supposed to do the homework, not the parents.
 
OP
OP
BFIB

BFIB

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,645
Netherscourge said:
My kid is doing the remote thing.

The teacher records a 7 minutes video for them all to watch each morning and then they go down a list of assignments to work on for an hour or two.

Then teacher does live chats with them individually and as a group when they need help. It's been rough.

They're learning long division over the internet and it's. a nightmare not having a teacher in person helping them all in real time.

I don't think this is going to work long term. A lot of these Kids will have to refresh or repeat. It's. a shame because they do so well in a normal classroom environment.
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That's basically what we have. We both have demanding careers (she does therapy work, I do IT Networking) so some days we are working 12 hour days.
 
bangai-o

bangai-o

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,527
Pau said:
I think this thread is about a completely different scenario.

So many of these assignments for young children require the use of technology that these kids don't really know. For example, filming a video of themselves doing the work and then uploading it properly to email or a web portal. It's a lot to ask for a five or six year old. It also assumes that they have access to such technology during the day. Maybe the family only has a limited number of computers, and they have to be used for work during the day. So many things that can be making this difficult.

And that's without going into the fact that much of the instruction is being pushed upon the parents. Young kids can't exactly read a worksheet or textbook to "self-learn" the same way that older students can.
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More than likely, its actually just teachers sending pdf files for students to complete. Printing out worksheets is what many teachers rely on at school, so it is not going to change much in our current context. Some of the more creative teachers will try to be more creative, but their school district probably has a required curriculum. Being creative around a required curriculum is not easy. So, the easiest way to fulfill the required curriculum is to just send the worksheets home via Google Classroom.
 
Walter White Walker

Walter White Walker

Member
Oct 27, 2017
21,518
My kids have things due once a week. They're both in 9th grade and are managing it fine.
I'm happy I got them into good homework practices when they were little. They've been on autopilot for a long time now and have it all on lockdown.
 
Pau

Pau

Self-Appointed Godmother of Bruce Wayne's Children
Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,838
bangai-o said:
More than likely, its actually just teachers sending pdf files for students to complete. Printing out worksheets is what many teachers rely on at school, so it is not going to change much in our current context. Some of the more creative teachers will try to be more creative, but their school district probably has a required curriculum. Being creative around a required curriculum is not easy. So, the easiest way to fulfill the required curriculum is to just send the worksheets home via Google Classroom.
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Yeah, I can see that for older students who can do worksheets. I'm going off of what family with young kids are having to do. Taking pictures, filming short videos, navigating online portals, etc. It sounds utterly impossible without a parent who can devote several hours a day.
 

alex.magnus

Member
Oct 28, 2017
405
Pau said:
I think this thread is about a completely different scenario.

So many of these assignments for young children require the use of technology that these kids don't really know. For example, filming a video of themselves doing the work and then uploading it properly to email or a web portal. It's a lot to ask for a five or six year old. It also assumes that they have access to such technology during the day. Maybe the family only has a limited number of computers, and they have to be used for work during the day. So many things that can be making this difficult.

And that's without going into the fact that much of the instruction is being pushed upon the parents. Young kids can't exactly read a worksheet or textbook to "self-learn" the same way that older students can.
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got it! but I'm still cnfused : you say you have to film the kid doing the assignment... what kind of homework you guys do? all we had was either write down research, small essays ( easy kid stuff like talk about your family) memorize poems and memorize tiny bits of world history, on top of basic math and geometry.

on the other hand we had no homeworks in kindergarden though
 
Pau

Pau

Self-Appointed Godmother of Bruce Wayne's Children
Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,838
alex.magnus said:
got it! but I'm still cnfused : you say you have to film the kid doing the assignment... what kind of homework you guys do? all we had was either write down research, small essays ( easy kid stuff like talk about your family) memorize poems and memorize tiny bits of world history, on top of basic math and geometry.

on the other hand we had no homeworks in kindergarden though
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Not my kids. But for example, my partner's sister had to help her daughter in Pre-K film herself telling a joke. Then upload the video; then help her use the online portal to view other kids' videos. She's never had homework before this. It's just not comparable to regular schooling at all for young children.
 

alex.magnus

Member
Oct 28, 2017
405
Pau said:
Not my kids. But for example, my partner's sister had to help her daughter in Pre-K film herself telling a joke. Then upload the video; then help her use the online portal to view other kids' videos. She's never had homework before this. It's just not comparable to regular schooling at all for young children.
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oh wow ok! I guess that is to ensure she is still socializing and interacting with kids her age and developing social skills
 

mrmoose

Member
Nov 13, 2017
21,175
MIMIC said:
The sentence is awkward, but you are wrong.

(School work is the subject, not children. Singular subject = singular verb)
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I'm pretty sure your children are the subject despite the placement in the sentence.
You don't say
How is your kids doing?
What car is your kids driving?


In any case I think some school districts here were a little overzealous especially with the younger kids who need help. The other thing I heard was that there are diminishing returns on attendance... my daughter's class had like 75 percent show up in the first zoom meeting and then more like 50 percent a week later. I don't think they can even hold them to any kind of standard, if they don't show up I don't think any are being held back and there are no standardized tests.
 
Kayotix

Kayotix

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,312
Wife is a stay at home mom and we have a tutor come in twice a week to help out with my son and make it less stressful on her. Also the teacher records videos to watch during the week and usually on Wednesdays they do a remote class learning experience so all the kids can see each other.

Its 1st grade and a private school so his work load isn't too bad. They knock it out by Thursday
 

Deleted member 41502

User requested account closure
Banned
Mar 28, 2018
1,177
My kids have a lot assigned but none of it is "mandatory" according to the school. Me and my wife both work. It's hard to do both simultaneously. I read a lot of parent threads about how stressful this is for kids, and about avoiding adding more with constant pressure for homework, and I've kinda backed off a bit. We do two or three short things a day. Some reading. Some writing. Some math. We'll do cosmic yoga together, or some kids Art club on YouTube when they want.

I've been kinda disappointed in the teachers here. Getting a zoom session with one once a week was a chore. And Seesaw just makes navigating it all a mess.
 
ChrisBliss117

ChrisBliss117

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,842
I work in an elementary school and assist students with special needs and I keep trying to figure out how the teachers are teaching our non verbal students. Sounds impossible.
 

mxphill

Member
Oct 28, 2017
56
I'd been disappointed by my district's initial response to it all. Now that we have something consistent in place, almost feels too late. I give three or four "assignments" a day to my fifth grade students: one "warm-up" random thing to keep the routine from school, then reading and math, and then one writing or social studies or science.

Being in fifth grade, they're old enough for me to tell the parents that I don't want them to be the teacher. If they could be the guest-teacher, that'd be nice, if they're just making sure that their child is logging on consistently and putting some work in. It hasn't been perfect, but I have been pleasantly surprised by the effort that the students have been putting into it. I kind of rebelled and told my students I expected them to continue putting in work while we weren't supposed to be giving students anything for the two weeks before Spring Break. That might be why they're still doing a relatively good job.

It's tough to substitute the classroom environment. Luckily, we were heavily invested in being a "culture of thinking," so that has helped keep things a little bit normal. Time to be creative with some projects, though, now that we're past the "start" of it.
 

mrmoose

Member
Nov 13, 2017
21,175
I didn't see anyone answer this so I'll ask directly: what are teachers doing with the work (for public school)? Are you still grading students? Like I said before I don't know what the local district will do but I think they'd be hard pressed to fail people who don't login and do these assignments.
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
38,985
Our 2 year old has watched Frozen or Frozen 2 about 30+ times.

mrmoose said:
I didn't see anyone answer this so I'll ask directly: what are teachers doing with the work (for public school)? Are you still grading students? Like I said before I don't know what the local district will do but I think they'd be hard pressed to fail people who don't login and do these assignments.
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My wife teaches kids at an inner city school who don't have a lot of access to technology, and so most of her students have basically stopped doing their work. She checks in on them weekly, but most don't have computers or reliable internet at home...

Privately -- they're pretty much all going to pass. Fuck it, there's a pandemic and these kids have bigger things to worry about. If equity weren't such a challenge for her students, it'd be different.

The school system is requiring teachers to do ~20hr of documented teaching a week, so she's trying to do that digitally, but it's only reaching a handful of students. The admins in te public school system know that, but what are you going to do. For most of these students, the library was a valuable resource to get online and use a computer, or BOys and Girls club, or whatvever, and they're all closed.
 
Goodlifr

Goodlifr

Member
Nov 6, 2017
1,885
3 kids 9,7,6.... Me and my wife both WFH full time at the moment

Honestly, we're telling them to do a worksheet a day, do a bit of reading and have given them so educational resources on their tablets, rest of the time they can do what they want.

It's not ideal, infact it's far from it, but they are really upset / worried (in their own ways) about what's going on in the world and me and wife are maxed out in work, we just don't think it's a battle worth fighting at the moment.
 
M. Wallace

M. Wallace

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,069
Midwest
My son is in kindergarten as well, we haven't done a whole lot of homework/schoolwork over the past month. Some here and there but I'm not too worried about it, we'll get caught up sometime soon.
 
AndyD

AndyD

Mambo Number PS5
Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,602
Nashville
The twins are in first grade. We have worksheets for them to do, writing prompts and basic math, then some computer based learning stuff including abc mouse, quaver (a music tool), IXL and a few others. All in all 1-2 hours of structured activity a day. They spend lunch to early afternoon outside with the neighbors kids. Then we read every night and we get them to do creative things like a lego competition, presentations, learn a dance, dress up... My wife and I are both working remotely, and we lead meetings and calls so we can't quite sit with them non-stop. Between cooking three meals, cleaning house, homework for them and work for us, we're busy for sure. But about 4-5 in the afternoon we call it and all go for a walk or bike ride which is one of the best parts of the day. Speaking of, it's about that time.
 
Hiphopopotamus

Hiphopopotamus

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
7,885
unnamed.jpg


Sorry, I am married to an English professor so you'll all have to suffer my life of pedantry along with me.

My son is 7mo and just learned to army crawl in the past two weeks. I feel for all you parents trying to navigate online learning. I promise most of the teachers are as frustrated as you are.
 
pantsattack

pantsattack

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,526
I'm watching my two kids every day. The older one is in K and he gets three assignments by prerecorded video every day. A writing assignment where he has a prompt for an idea and he chooses his answer and writes two sentences about it and an illustration. A math example and a problem to do that he usually has to write out three different ways to visualize it. And a story book that has reflection questions. There are some math assignments that are on Khan Academy that might be extra, I don't know. Plus the school provides worksheet packets which are definitely optional. The three main assignments are sent in every day and the classmates can see each other's work.

The stuff he knows he tears through, but if it's new I have to read it to him and reteach all the steps. At least he knows how to turn on his assignment videos. It can be a long day getting through all these things caring for both kids and not neglecting the younger that is all free form playtime. Add in trying to get them to brush their teeth, each do their one daily chore, and put pants on before we go outside. Sheesh. I'm grateful they have each other and are good playmates or it could be a lot worse.
 
CrocoDuck

CrocoDuck

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,287
As a teacher doing what is being called "remote learning" at a middle school, probably a bit more than half of my students aren't doing the work. Most of that stems from a lack of knowledge on how to navigate Google classroom, lack of resources to access the work (internet access or functioning laptops), struggling to manage the workload from all of their classes, and general laziness (they think this is a vacation).

I wouldn't stress over your Child's need to get everything done on time. This is a crazy time in history and most people, teachers included, aren't prepared or never experienced this. I would recommend speaking with your Childs teacher and letting her know if she can extend the due date. Due to the virus, Teachers and schools should know that a students life isn't just affected academically but personally as well.
 
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