Boring, repetitive homework becomes awesome science lesson

Today when Sweet Pea pulled out her 4 pages of math homework, she sighed and said "I don't WANT to do my homework. It's so boring. It's the same thing over and over and over. Why can't I learn something NEW?"

I didn't try to sugar coat it. I agreed with her. Her homework is awful. She's been adding and subtracting the same numbers every week since starting 1st grade last August. It's the sort of thing that makes you want to stab your eyes out with your pencil.

After commiserating about her boring homework, I reminded her that while "math homework" is tedious and boring, "math" is awesome on so many levels. An important distinction and one I plan to make often.

Then I said, "How fast can you get this done?" She smiled slyly and said, "I bet I can do it pretty fast."

I said, "I'll time you. We'll record your time every time you do your homework from now until the end of the year and see if you get faster."

After getting a stopwatch I prompted her with, "Ready. Set. GO!" 16 minutes and some odd seconds later, she stopped. We created a spreadsheet for her to log her time. I asked her to come up with a few variables that might influence how quickly she gets her homework done. We made the entry in the spreadsheet, filling in the variables along with the date, her time, and the number of pages of homework she had to do.

Homework was done for the week and it was NEW and FUN.

And the best part is: as the weeks go on we can incorporate lessons like graphing, prediction, and testing hypotheses. Math homework no longer has to be boring and repetitive. 

Here's the recipe.

 Materials

• 1 stopwatch or kitchen timer 
• 1 spreadsheet or piece of paper + pencil to use for logging data 
• 1 boring homework assignment 

 Steps

1. Make your data log (use your favorite spreadsheet program or draw a table on your paper) 
2. Help your child brainstorm things that may affect how quickly your child can do their homework 
1.  Make sure you let them come up with these variables; it's their experiment! But do explain the importance of including the date and the amount of homework if they don't get that on their own. 
2.  Guide them with questions such as: 
1. "What do you think might help you do your homework faster? Slower?" 
2. "What sorts of things might make you think better? Worse?" 
3. "What types of homework can you get done faster? Slower?" 
3. Show them how to make a spreadsheet (on paper or on the computer) 
1.  Put their variable names in the top row 
2.  Help them make their entry in the first column 
4. Make an entry in the homework log every time they have bring an assignment home. After a few entries, start making some graphs and have fun exploring their hypotheses ("Will get faster over time," "Will be slower if  hungry," "Will be faster first thing in the morning", etc.). The possibilities are endless!