why parents pay for Catholic school

C's summer assignments from Hogwarts:

• read the first 15 chapters of the AP Euro textbook
• read & outline the first 6 chapters of the AP bio textbook
• watch Franco Zefferilli's Jesus of Nazareth
  
• read 3 books for English
• read 1 book on dealing with stress (guidance assignment)
  

Here's what Lefty's going-into-7th-grade son will be doing:

A Mathematical Scavenger Hunt at the Library

Go the the city library--either the main library or a branch library. Do the following activities and record all of this information in an attractive booklet or on a poster. Plan ahead since you may need more than one visit to do everything on the list

1. Draw a sketch of the front of the library on 8.5 X 11 paper. Show the windows and doors. Estimate the width and height of the building and show these dimensions on your sketch. Explain the strategy you used to make your estimate.

2. Go to a room in the library. Make a sketch of the floor plan of the room. Estimate the length and width of the room. What is your estimate of the area of the room? Explain the strategy you used to make your estimate

3. Find a section of the books that you like. Write down the types of books you chose. Place your forearm along the shelf and count how many books there are from the tip o your elbow to the tip of your fingers.

4. Estimate the number of books in this room. Explain what strategy you used to come up with your estimate.

5. Find a chart showing the Dewey decimal numbers for the categories of books in the library. Copy the information to the chart.

6. If you do not already have one, sign up for a library card.

7. Check out a non-fiction book that you would like to read. List its title, author, and Dewey decimal number.

Bring the project to school on the first day. Your teacher will use the data you have collected for class.

Left offers a suggested summer assignment for her school's teachers.

I think we've resorted to drill and kill

My 5th grader just showed me her home work for the weekend. 26 pages, totalling 115 problems. Every single problem involves estimation.

Due Monday.

My daughter was surprisingly upbeat about this. It could have been worse. A friend of hers has 6 of these packets to do over the weekend.

It's panic time. The CMT testing begins in 4 weeks. We have a week off for winter break starting next weekend. Apparently all the fifth graders were tested for their weak areas and some extra practice was assigned.

If you were the parent of the child that came home with close to 600 problems to complete in one weekend, what would you do? Especially if this should come after 5 months of haphazard, math box type homework. This is so completely unreasonable and unproductive.

Why don't they just use one solid curriculum with distributed practice and feedback that builds cumulatively and consistently throughout the year?

I'm all for repetition and practice, but this is nuts. Just before the test, assign 100s of problems to do at home? When the kids get decent CMT scores, are we really going to attribute that to Everyday Math? The answer is sadly, yes.

Needless to say, we are taking a break from Singapore Math this weekend. My plan had been to finish the unit on ratios and review a little of the fraction stuff we did last week. It had been going so well. The ratio chapter was so logically tied into the work we had done on fractions. She was actually enjoying it and it came very easily.

But it is all estimation all weekend instead. This is not time well spent.

Plus, we have problems such as this:

Sara has 5 pet dogs ranging in weight from 65 pounds to 130 pounds. Which could be the number of pounds the dogs weighed in all?
200
400
600
800

Well, 5x65=325 and 5x130=650; Both 400 and 600 should be correct answers as they both fall within the range.

This infuriates me.