When I pick up my kids from school, we always talk about their days. That will never change.
But our commute is really long (45 minutes) and after about 10 minutes, I know who got in trouble (always some OTHER kid, of course), what was for lunch (well, I discover the dessert portion of the meal), and what they learned (nothing...every single day).
So we do homework in the car.
I let each boy pick out an inexpensive clipboard for use only in the car. We store it in the netting behind the front seats of the car.
The clipboard lets them do written homework, like math worksheets. Math is really easy for my kids, so it's great to practice in the car.
After math, we also do any reading assignments and call out spelling words. (I have the boys call them to each other while I drive.)
We do save things like writing a paragraph for at home, though.
Before, they would hate getting out of the car at home. They dreaded homework.
Since we've started this new routine, after school hours have gotten much more pleasant. Even if there is homework left for at home, it's not much.
The boys are much happier and actually ask to do car homework now.
If you have a long commute, try it. Not every kid can handle homework in the car, but don't automatically assume that your kids can't handle it.
Etcetera.
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Partied at: Reasons to Skip the Housework, Inspiration Monday, Sundays Down Under, Mommy Monday, Manic Mondays
8 comments:
We grew up doing homework in the car! I didn't know there was another way ; )
that is an awesome idea. Wish I had thought of it when my kids were smaller.
Used to do Spanish homework on the bus ride home in high school. Was normally the only homework that could be done without a computer (looking at you, essays - though I loved essays, so...), and was normally pretty quick. Also helped that the bus ride home was about 50 minutes (yay for small schools).
Sounds like quite a good plan, we don't have a long commute though so wouldn't work that way but I could see it working if we had to drive some where and the homework needed to be complete :)
Sadly our trip to school & back is a 0.75mile walk in each direction :-) mind you, once he gets spelling words they could still be done then! Great idea :-)
Re what did they learn that day, I realised that this is too open-ended a question for my kids. Do I mean did they learn the rules for that skipping game in the playground, or did they learn that you can peel back part of the carpet if you sit in just the right spot during circle time, or, oh yeah, do I want to know which letters of the alphabet they talked about in their groups. My 4yo doesn't know how to prioritise which bits to tell me about. As far as he's concerned he learned tons of stuff every single minute of the day! So I ask more focused questions. What was your favourite part of the story your teacher read today? Were there any pictures on your worksheets? Your teacher told me you'd be talking about farming and harvests, which part did you like the best? Who did you sit next to during lunch? Did *they* like the lunch? What was the best thing that happened today? What was the saddest/worst thing? And so on. If I just ask 'what did you do today?' I get "nothing" grunted in reply (especially from the 11yo!). So I try to ask there kinds of questions which will need at least one sentence in reply :-)
When my kids went to school, as opposed to homeschooling, we did homework in the car every day, too! It was a great use of otherwise unproductive time, and, like your boys, mine loved that most, if not all, of their homework was finished by the time we got back home. Good time management can never start too early! ;)
Hilarious that they are learning nothing every day ;) When I ask my son what he did during the day he tells me he doesn't know. Every. Day. The kid has no recollection of what he did during the day. More likely he just doesn't want to take the time to tell me about it.
What a great idea to have your kids doing homework in the car. There is nothing better than getting home after school and having less homework to do!
This is genius! Our car rides are generally pretty short, but next road trip, this is a great idea! Thanks or sharing at the Manic Mondays blog hop :)
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