Post by Tatyana L on Mar 23, 2019 8:29:39 GMT 9

The little one has no mandatory homework at all. So she’s free to do whatever. She usually copies her sister. The big one has weekly school homework. Luckily, two thirds into the year they realized the kids can’t manage double the normal amount of work even if the workbooks title their section “week 1” and “week 2”. They now assign one week unit for two weeks, but in two languages. It has proven much more successful.
I sat with her a few times and helped work through things. Now in the last couple of weeks she has done her school ml homework at school. So that’s good.
Sitting with her these few times I realized how little Spanish she actually knows. I don’t think she’ll become fully fluent without outside help. But not homework! I don’t want to force academic work on her.
3) Is reducing the number of activities from 3 to 2 (for instance) completely out of the question? This would be a good way to relieve the pressure and make a bit more time for homework.
Unfortunately that is now the way youth sports work in United States. Most sports have a season of 6-15 weeks. But, because of the shortened time they make it more intense. So when soccer season happens, it’s two practices a week plus a game or two on the weekend. For swim it’s practice 5 times a week plus a competition anywhere from twice a week to once every two weeks, depending on the club. Ours is closer to every other week.
And that’s at the recreational level. If you want to go competitive and have a chance to play for a university (which gives you money toward our very expensive university education) and maybe be a professional or Olympic athlete, then basically you do the same intense schedule, but year round.
Thankfully my kids are more brains than muscles, but they do enjoy sports. The little one genuinely doesn’t understand why she can’t do all her three sports at the same time. The big one was very upset last year when we dropped gymnastics for swim season, and she came back 3 months later and got downgraded on a lot of her skills.
4) Could there be a way for the girls to work together on something whilst you are cooking? Maybe the big one helping the little one with an exercise or reading? That would strengthen the eldest's own knowledge, revising basics and learning to explain what she knows to another (an excellent way to test her knowledge and communication skills).
That could work. I just can’t think of an activity that would be enticing enough, as the older one is the more reluctant one on any sort of academic activity.