Where is the educational value?

Tonight Grace and I decided to start the week off right so we started her homework right when she got home.  Many times we would read the directions together, I make sure she understands what to do and then I let Grace do her work.  I am always close by for her questions or if she needs help.  This is what Monday’s homework said:

– Make your own words:  Cut out from newspaper or a magazine all the words ending in _op (i.e. shop, stop,…) 

Challenge:  Place tally marks next to each word if you find it again.  Which word(s) did you find more of? 

REALLY?  I was thinking so many bad things in my head, but I could not say them with Grace sitting there.  REALLY?  You want my daughter to sit and look through a magazine or newspaper and look for words ending in _op?  What is she learning?  She knows how to cut.  She know how to spell.  She understands the concept of forming words.  I just felt this was a silly waste of me and my childs time.  I said a few half way pleasant things and helped Grace look .  We looked for 15 minutes and found 3 words.  They were all the same word, shop.  Guess what this meant?  We got to use tally marks!  The challenge was complete and so were we. 

Please do not misunderstand me, I love the teacher and school my daughter attends.  It just seems sometimes the homework is not challenging.  It is just busy work.  Do the teachers sit around and discuss days they don’t have homework scheduled?  Someone then stands up and says, “Let’s just have them cut those days.”  Make the cutting stop!  I was telling my husband I remember cutting projects as a child and I thought it was a good memory.  Grace is telling me she is doing a lot of cutting.  ha ha 

I am always looking for sites that have educational worksheets to challenge Grace.  I came across a pretty cool one tonight I would like to share.  I liked how it was set up plus it seemed to cover all ages.  I mainly looked under 1st grade and that had great worksheets.  Click the dragon below to check it out!