School Days

Why is it that the only one of my children who is enthusiastic about doing homework is the only one who is not required to do any?

Henry treats homework with polite indifference. It's almost beneath him to sit down and do his homework, but he does it to keep the peace. William is slowly adopting a better attitude about homework. The key word is slowly. Jay and/or I still have to sit with him every second and monitor what he's doing, but he doesn't whine quite as much about practicing his handwriting. His favorite thing to do for homework is cut out letters of the alphabet, put tape on the letters, and go around the house looking for items that begin with said letter. My favorite was the day he had to find something starting with the letter B - he taped a piece of paper on Henry (for boy and brother). The hardest so far was O - we finally settled on orange juice, the "on" light switch, and an "open" door. We thought of alot of O words, just none that were on hand and ready to label. Too bad we got rid of our pet octopus.

This exercise is what has inspired Tessa to start doing homework. She loves to follow William around as he labels household items with the letter of the day. Jay made her an additional copy of the letters and she did the same thing. But she took it further. She spent at least half an hour glueing shapes that Jay cut out for her onto a random piece of paper. She cried when it was William's turn to use the safety scissors. She actually begged for more homework, so I googled "preschool writing practice" and printed off a few pages with colors and numbers on them. She proceeded to massacre them with her scissors.

Is this a girl thing or a youngest child thing? Maybe both. I guess it's too much to hope that this fondness for homework carries over for a few more years.