a small little complaint, insignificant in the grand scheme of things

lunch date

Went to Wal mart this morning.  My weekly torture.  It's not so much Wal mart as it is how expensive everything is.

After I got home and put stuff away I went back to pick up little Ziver from the spa and we met dad for lunch.  It was a nice reward.  

Loving the washer/dryer.  The washer holds so much more than my old one.  The dryer is faster than the washer.  Crazy!

Not loving Grace's STEM experience so far.  She's had a lot of homework and isn't doing it independently.  Last night's homework had some really hard questions too.  For example one of her math questions was what two numbers who's product is 10,000 don't have "0"s in them.  One of her science questions was why don't airplanes fly in the upper stratosphere, the answer btw, was not in the text and we only could answer it because we have an aerospace engineer in house.  The bus stop was full of homework chatter.  We are writing a letter saying it's too much.  2 hours a night for 9 year olds is too much.  When E was in 4th grade I do remember hearing some of the mom's complaining but he didn't ever have very much homework.  This time around it's different and it's hard for me. A) in my heart of hearts I dont' believe kids that age need homework, they have plenty of time at school to do work and I'm pretty sure nothing new is learned on hour 7 or 8 of studying.  I actually think kids need more recess and less classroom time.  I remember when I taught 1st grade, I would get to school early and be working in my classroom and kids would begin to arrive, sometimes 30 minutes before school started.  They would then play on the playground.  (what kind of insanity is that??) They would run and yell and sometimes scrape their knees.  This was not so great on picture day but pretty darn great every other day.  The bell would ring and the kids would run to line up.  It was great. In the morning they would have a 20 min recess.  There was a recess aide. At lunch there was recess and in the afternoon we would go outside for PE, often.  It would be hard to convince me that kids learn more now than they did then.  They also stayed and played on the playground after school.  Play on a playground.  Hmmmm? And they were allowed to run.  I'm just saying.

Anyway back to homework we have a lot and it's annoying.  B.) I'm not that dumb and if I have to ask Siri the answer maybe it's a little much.  Or at least cover it in school or in the text.  I hope this is going to be a good fit.  Grace is a smart little girl and loves science, particularly biology and zoology that kind of thing.  The study of living things is her thing.  That said this has been tough, it's not coming easily to her and the work load is discouraging.  Forging on, trudging on, moving forward encumbered with the burden of a heavy and unreasonable load....with cheer and an encouraging smile. Oh and C) what about playing at home, or playing on the playground across from your home, or playing on a sports team??  Nope, no time you have homework.

So this morning she cried.  I told her the answer to the math problem (after consulting Siri), Rob told her the science answer, which I translated for her on the way to school and she wrote down in the car...pretty sure no learning happened (well I learned something if you want to know about the stratosphere thing just ask) but it did make the morning oh so pleasant, and last night when I "reminded" her multiple times to do it and then used "sign language" while on my phone presidency meeting to "encourage" her...that was pleasant too.