My 5 year old has INSANE home work.

My son VEEN diagram was about crayons and markers by the way. Typical kid stuff.

Yes, that is ridiculous. I was worried about my daughter and kindergarten but after I read through the school policy book, it pretty much stated something I have always agreed with - that extra practice in the form of ASSIGNED extra work is NOT practical. The kids are not given EXTRA work after the school day to take home, if they HAVE work that they did not complete at school for whatever reason, it is of course required to be finished at home. I DO agree with that, but I also agree that kids should have incentives to help them do the work in class, where it is supposed to be completed. I can tell you that I didn't go to college for six years to be a teacher, and I do not have any intensive knowledge of state and federal standards for children ages 5-18, I have no educational degree and honestly no deep interest in either having that knowledge nor teaching it. Family bonding? That is a joke. If the parents don't understand the concept NOR know HOW the teacher wants it to be taught, how in the world could we possibly help our child? I volunteered in my son's 6th grade class and the way the teachers now teach some math concepts is VERY different than how I learned when I was that age. The teachers don't like for students to learn differently than the way THEY teach, so that means even if I knew how to get the right answer, the teachers are more interested in the process than the correct answer, although the correct answer matters too, so my hands are tied. Also, from talking to multiple teachers for MULTIPLE years from MULTIPLE schools, this is what I have gathered. Any work given to students or left over that they did not finish at school is for concepts they should already be familiar with. If the kids cannot complete the assignments, it's NOT because the teacher didn't teach them, perhaps they did not absorb the information or they did not have the basic concepts before that concept learned yet. There is a problem if your child brings home assignments for things they have NO idea how to complete. I don't know if this is the fault of the child or the teacher or some of both, or the fact that instead of having 20 kids in a class, they now have 42, but that's neither here nor there. The assigments are supposed to be small, or whatever wasn't completed at school really shouldn't take longer than 20 minutes if your student stays on task. It is designed just for practice and as far as the family bonding thing - in order to help show parents or guardians a little bit of what your child is learning in the classroom. Most kids should be excited to show you a bit of what they do, at least if they are younger. When they are older, I think it's more important for parents to keep an eye to ensure that the work is both grade and age level appropriate - not too much, not too little... the right amount of expecations.

Just got the packet yesterday. Conferences are this evening. We will be bringing this up.

As a teacher, I would always suggest that your first line of communication is with the teacher.

So as a kindergarten teacher you like to send home something every day? Do you perhaps not realize that because of budget cuts and the removal of so many extra curricular and fun things from the classroom and school day (despite kids still being in school the same amount of time), that now parents NEED that time their kids are home from school to implement those things ourselves? Things like creative art, coloring, drawing, painting? Sports, dance, gymnastics, karate? I actually don't mind the packets IF it is something small that covers the concepts from that week, something like say, 5 pages. Okay, five pages, five days. That seems reasonable. Any more than that and you will meet a bristling mommy. My daughter is at school almost 4 hours a day as it is, I don't think she needs to spend more than a few minutes a day EXTRA on anything related. Now I do agree with the reading and the reading log, but I don't put that in the category of homework. Many people read for enjoyment, so that's what I want it seen as. I know that I do lol. I am not one of those parents who likes homework or thinks it is in any way a good thing. Now I DO like to see the papers or assignments or examples of concepts learned, but that can be done quite easily by sending home the completed papers in my daughter's backpack and then she can talk about what she did at school. When you're an adult, it is frowned on to take work home with you, plus most people are not paid nor reimbursed for that time, so what is the point? I don't think that is appropriate behavior anyway, and it bothers me that kids these days are almost being PUSHED into being adults as quickly as people can do it. Don't they realize, you get old far too fast, you become responsible far too fast, and there is no going back. Rushing childhood is the saddest thing, it goes by in the blink of an eye anyway.