Is this abnormal for 4th grade homework?

Everyday?! My elementary aged children have sports practice once a week. Even my high school student only practices four times a week for varsity swimming. Maybe it's a football thing.

Yeah, but how long to write up his analysis?

Now he has the weekend. End of story.

And with the weekend comes more homework, unless memories of school betray me.

I'm good with around an hour of homework at that grade level, by the way. I don't believe reading and reporting on a book is a reasonable task in the time allowed, even if that's the only assignment.

School is done at 3 , and he doesn't get home for 4 - 5 hours? Seems that there's some time in there for reading and/or homework. Is football really absorbing that much time?

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Last year it wasn't really necessary because they didn't have writing homework -- just fill in the blank English stuff. This year I think it will be necessary to include writing more specifically.

Practice is 3 days a week and there is a game every Saturday through November.

He gets out of school at 3 and leaves for football at 5. He doesn't get home from football until 7:30 or 8.

There is time to get it done. He's been getting it all done (except for the book report). I just think it's too much homework. And, yes, football does absorb that much time: 9-10 hours each week (the games are short, about an hour). With football he's just hitting a bit over the weekly RDA for physical activity for a kid his age by a couple of hours. At school they only have gym 2 times a week for 40 minutes.

I'm glad to hear the teacher gave him the weekend!

What about recess? Our school considers that "physical activity." Of course, some kids need more than others.

Recess is only 20 minutes a day. That's expanded from the last several years by 5 minutes -- an improvement. If we include recess we can add 1.5 hours to his weekley physical time: 10-11.5 hours.

True, Mo probably needs more activity than most kids but I certainly don't think it's excessive. Most studies I've seen recommend that kids get an hour a day of physical activity so he's just beating it by a few hours during football season. Pee wee football season is only about 3.5 months long. If you average it out over the year he's probably just hitting the RDA.

Sounds reasonable.

Right now we're in the middle of cross country season here. Maybe SonofEva will have time for karate again when it's over. I hope so. He misses it. But it will depend on how much homework he has those nights.

I would never cut physical activity from my child's routine! It is PROVEN that 20-30 min of physical activity helps children's cognitive ability and concentration. It is proven that sports/physical activity helps test scores. Having said that, homework is important too. I have never been a fan of "all homework first, play later”....

Personally, I have my child read 15 min while she (or he in your case?) has her after school snack. I would practice 5 spelling words out loud in the car to and from practice each day. I would have 20 min. of just homework time each day, (which could be one English worksheet and a bit of the report each day) and then before bed, the final 15 min of reading... An hour solid is too much in my humble opinion. Isn't it balance in life that we all strive for anyway? My daughter loves soccer games and soccer practice. To take that away and tell her that she needs that extra time to study and do homework would really be counter-productive. She would resent the schoolwork, (which would kill her attitude toward school) and resent me for taking a passion away from her. I found that breaking it up (the homework) is the best avenue and it seems to work GREAT!

Maybe my mom did the same thing. Anyway, it's gotten to the point that I can't enjoy a meal without reading.

As I said, I went to school in Canada. We also went to school for longer days than they do now. More time in school means that we learned more in school and a high volume of homework was not necessary.

Also, as I said, we usually had homework because we did not finish in school or needed the extra time to complete tests etc. successfully. I did very well in school and homework was not something that I had to do a lot of to successfully pass the tests.

I was an honour student throughout my school years. I only mention this to appease your curiosity and insinuations that we should have had more homework. Perhaps you needed the extra time. I did not.

The amount of homework that mo has is not excessive for today's standards as the bar has been set higher for today's students.

Our guy that just started grade 6 has more homework and more complex learning that we ever had when i was in grade 6. Actually, I was the highest achieving grade sixer in my school without doing homework. This was in the fifties. That would not fly today.

What does MO say about the amount of his homework ??????

Hi linki. You've reminded me of some articles I read a while back discussing how we've gone from the idea of the "scholar athlete" to the idea of the "dumb jock". I'm going to have to refind those; they presented an interesting history of American thought.

We try to break things up a bit too. We're early risers so we usually have a bit of time before school starts to get some reading done.

What bothers me is that it seems every moment of the day is structured. I believe goofing off is good for a person.



Exactly!

He thinks it's a drag. But, you know, he's 9 so anything adults insist is good for him is a drag.

Just catching up.
An hour per night in 4th grade would be about normal. Depends on how long the kid takes to actually do it.
I did think the book report handed out on thurs and due on fri was pushing it. Glad he's got the weekend to do it.
Most kids here have football practice twice a week for roughly 2 hrs - 3 hrs. more by the time they actually travel to and from the football ground.


This would be low to normal for AU kids.

Remember there is no in team and also no I in mom.