On Tuesday there was a bit of a kerfuffle about a certain t-shirt JCPenny stopped selling. This girl’s shirt actually referenced being too pretty to do homework. The public was outraged over such a horrible message, (Which, for the record, does not invade on anyone’s Free Speech. There’s a difference between yelling “That Sucks!” and “That Should Be Outlawed!” I was yelling the prior, therefore, not invading on anyone’s right to sell crappy merchandise.) and after copious tweets/messages/blog entries – they took the shirt out of the store.
That VERY SAME DAY, I had my first Parent/Teacher conference with Nikki’s teacher where I discovered the lie my daughter had been living.
Several times a week these first 3 weeks of school, Nikki has had homework. Some nights it seemed very normal, albeit boring. A half-sheet of paper with lines of letters to circle. Took her about 15 seconds and sometimes I felt like I could see eraser marks where she had erased circles and re-drawn them. Other nights it was more interactive. One night she had a half-sheet of paper with letters on it and we went around the house finding words that started with each letter. She put a hatch mark down and we discovered which letter was more “popular” in our house. And then she made Donnie sign the paper because, for some reason, that’s what we were supposed to do. Then Monday night’s homework was to draw her “Favorite Thing To Do”. She was listing all of the pages she was going to draw before I pointed out that if the homework was to draw her favorite, then maybe she should pick ONE. She did, and drew a picture of herself playing with her toys.
The next morning is when things got a little fishy.
Nikki, put your homework in your notebook.
I don’t need to take it to school.
How will Ms. B know you did it, then?
I’ll just tell her.
Are you sure she doesn’t want to actually see it?
Yeah.
Well. At this parent/teacher conference I learned why. THERE HAS BEEN NO HOMEWORK GIVEN. EVER. AT ALL. Now, these half-sheets of paper that look like wimpy homework? She gives those to Nikki sometimes because Nikki asks for homework. But the teachers are all supposed to use the same curriculum and they’re not giving out homework yet in Kindergarten so she just improvised with Nikki and periodically gives her these half sheets which – she told me – Nikki almost always completes before even leaving the building. So then what does she do? ERASES THE ANSWERS so she can do them again.
When I told her teacher about the other “homework” we’d been doing, she was very impressed. “Those are some GREAT ideas! I may use those later.”
We didn’t get onto her for lying, how could we? “You are grounded for lying about having homework!” Although we did discuss better ways to accomplish the same thing. That if she just TOLD use she wanted to do these things, we’d let her. We don’t ONLY allow homework in this house, and all other work is banned. We know she just wants to be like big brother, who thinks the whole thing is insane since he can never imagine a world where you would WANT to do homework.
To which I replied, “It’s because you’re too pretty.”
I don’t think I quite asked for homework at that age but we went through a stage in my house where I was doing my homework and my brother would lie about not having it mainly because it didn’t get it or it wasn’t interesting – thankfully it was that, that meant the teachers and my parents worked out that something was wrong – He has dyspraxia.
When I was in year 4 I got a GCSE maths textbook from the library – I was 8 or 9 and you sit your GCSEs at 16.
Love it! She’s going to love school. That’s awesome! Also, your comment to E that he doesn’t like doing homework because he’s too pretty? Brilliant! lol
This is one of the best NikkiZ stories ever! I’m still smirking and chuckling. That girl is something else. Making up homework?!?! I love how she added the authenticity touch of having Donnie sign it…ha ha ha ha ha.
This reminds me of me though I don’t think I lied about getting homework. I’m 11 and 13 years younger than my brother and sister and my birthday is on the end of the cut off to start school. I’d see my brother and sister spend all day at school and older neighborhood kids come home with homework and I was jealous. My mom determined I was ready for school and signed me up to start kindergarten as soon as I was eligible which made me the youngest kid by at least a month. I was incredibly excited to get to start bringing homework home in my backpack.
I wish you had a like button,lol! This whole post had me cracking up!
Ha! E needs to make a shirt that says he’s to pretty for homework so his sister has to do it for him 😉
You give the best description of the kerfluffle too. Most of the comments I saw said it sucks, and those that complained to JCP weren’t infringing on their rights either, IMO. Customers can complain.
This totally sounds like my daughter at her second preschool! The first preschool that she went to was a private religious one (that was the only one that would take her at such a young age) and she was about 3 years old (the youngest as everyone else was 4 or 5). She was doing all the worksheets and learning all the lessons that the older kids did and she LOVED it.
The next year she went to half day preschool at our closest public school and she hated it. She came home and said “Mommy can you help me learn to read? They only are teaching me how to cut and glue stuff and I can already do that. They don’t even do worksheets!”. She just started 8th grade today and I am hoping that this year her honors teachers can actually challenge her better so that she isn’t bored like last year.
Too funny! I used to do the exact same thing in kindergarten and 1st grade! I eventually skipped a grade and the doing homework twice stopped quickly.
When I was in school, I was like your daughter. I’d ask for extra homework. It was usually because I was bored. I wanted more to do. It helped me later on, when I hit high school because I realized that I was already USED to the amount they were giving because I’d asked for it in elementary and middle school, 😀
*w00t* for WANTING to learn but *boo* for lying. At least it was a CREATIVE way of going about it. Good for the teacher for working with her on it 😀
and your son … is too pretty 😛
OMG that is hilarious and adorable!
I love it! what an awesome gift your girl has – she LOVES to learn! WOOO!!! 🙂
Last year I searched around to find some things for my kids to do to “earn” time playing on my iPod or watching TV, whatever. I wanted them to be fun and more or less educational, but I didn’t want to spend a ton of money. So I searched for “Free worksheets” and found a TON of links. Also, if you go to a Dollar Tree store (if you have those in your area) they have a bunch of coloring books and activity books and books of Kindergarten or First Grade math & reading workbooks. For $1. It’s pretty stinking awesome.
The shirt thing cracked me up in a way because it was a huge ordeal that they added the word too PRETTY to do homework, when I have been ignoring equally dumb shirts (i.e. too cool for homework) in the boys department for years. I choose to express my distain simply by not purchasing ridiculous shirts. As for your daughter, my nieces and son’s kindergarten teachers had to do the same thing, give a little extra work to a few kids. There is such a wide range in kindergarten…. some kids have never been to preschool or been taught at home….and can’t identify letters, shapes or colors, and then some kids like my son and niece were reading before they started kindergarten. I love that she wanted to keep working though!
i will never get over this! where did that girl come from?! i love it!
OMG, Sooooo very funny!
I didn’t do exactly that when I was her age, but I did complete all my kindergarten letter workbooks on the day I got them when I was her age. Target has some fun workbooks in the dollar bins right now, and I bet she would love those. Workbooks used to be my favorite thing in the world! (I am admittedly kind of dorky, but the good kind, of course.)
This made me laugh mucho hard because she suckered y’all into it too!! She’s a sly one!
Too funny; I did NOT see that coming! Definitely get that little smarty-pants some workbooks.
You’re daughter is fabulous! I love that she asked for homework! Maybe you could encourage her by taking her to a teacher store to pick out some workbooks. They have great books with fun activities. You could tear them out and she could sit with E and have homework time. It builds good habits, strengthens her skills, and it’s just darn cute!
I would suggest books with titles like “Everything your 1st grader needs to know” . They will have all different type of activities and she sounds like what she needs is a challenge. 🙂
enjoy your little smarty pants! 🙂
Oh my gosh, that is so funny! I have never heard of a kid making up their own homework before.