Homework?!?!

Homework?!? What is that? Yes, Ethan is in 3rd grade and has never had homework before. He has always had teachers who believed that if the kids worked hard during the day, that they shouldn't have to go home and work hard at night. I, personally, haven't minded because it meant that he was doing well and he was working hard at school. His reading level is high and so we haven't been worried about the lack of homework...until now...

He now has homework and has no idea what to do with it. His teacher will send home a packet on Monday with assignments to do each day in math and spelling. He has to do the assignment each night and turn the completed packet in on Friday. Last week was hard. He seems to consider homework to be punishment and something really hard to do. We also found out at SEPs last night that he has a very high reading score but an average math score. Which means that he doesn't like doing math because he struggles with it a bit and it isn't as easy as reading and he hasn't had to struggle with anything before.

I didn't like the fights and the drama around homework so I decided to try something. I made him a homework center. I went to the dollar store and bought a board which I cut into a shape to fit around his desk. I glued some clips on it and put it on his desk. It has clips for his spelling words, to do assignments, done assignments, calendar and note cards. I even bought him some new pencils and erasers. We put the office chair (which was sitting empty downstairs) at his desk and I put a desk light there. He was impressed. Hopefully this will help. We'll see.