homework, oh homework

alex is now in the 3rd grade.  there is a big difference between the work in the 2nd grade and the work in the 3rd grade.  the expectations are higher.  the work itself is just more difficult.  i expect alex to work hard and do his best.  so far his performance has been less than stellar.  he got a "needs improvement" on his reading log because he didn't read 3 of the assigned days.  he has missed 3 or 4 questions on a couple of reading comprehension passages that only had 8 or so questions.  this isn't like him.  he's a good student.  he is disorganized and messy, but a good student.

he goes to after school care since he gets out at 3:15 and i'm not back on this side of town until 4:30.  i had a big talk with him when school started about him having to be responsible and do his homework in after school care.  i told him that we can't be up all night doing homework.  not only is a lot assigned (something in every subject), but he is slow and easily distracted.

today when i picked him up from after school care he was playing.  he told me that he only did his math homework because the rest was confusing.  the rest being read for 20 minutes, write a reader's response, do a cause/effect worksheet, complete tonite's spelling homework, and redo last night's spelling homework.

redo?? wtf??  it was just writing the words 3 times each.  i watched him do it.  well it turns out that he wrote it on the wrong side of the page in the spiral notebook and she wanted him to rewrite it.  i can see where she is coming from--she wants him to follow directions. but, as the parent, i'm aggravated because he did do his homework last night.  he did it correctly.  he just did it on the wrong side of the paper.  i guess if he gets away with that in the 3rd grade then he'll be a hardened criminal by the time he is in high school...

it's 7:00 pm and he is still doing homework.  he started at 5:30.  he may not get any TV time tonite.  he may not get to play with toys.  i believe that he made this choice by not doing his work in after school care, but i still feel bad that he has done nothing but work all night.

oh well...