Homework Time

My mom recently bought Marco a preschool workbook to help get him ready for school.  At first glance, I knew it would be too challenging for him, but I decided to give it a try anyway.  I figured, I'd walk him through it and see how long he could focus for.  At first he could only do about 3 pages at a time before drifting off, but within a few weeks, he was doing 5.  Now, 2 months later, he does about 7 pages at a time!  His focus is increasing!

The rule is that he can only do his "homework" when he's sitting down with me.  TV off.  At an early age, I want him to understand that homework time requires focus.  I want him to respect it... so that's why I don't allow him to do it by himself.  I know that if I just gave him the book, he'd scribble all over it and it would become a hot mess in less than 2 minutes.  We also go in order of pages.  There are some pages in the back that he always wants to do, but I tell him we have to get there by doing the previous pages first.  He's learning that things have to go in order.

 I really like this book.  It goes in order from easy to hard.  There are a max of 4 questions per page and they're super visually stimulating.  As you can see, I am usually the one to write in the book... Marco does all the pointing.

On this page, the last question is a rhyming question.  Marco does not yet understand the concept of rhyming... and that's ok!  For the ones that he doesn't understand, I give him the answer.  I say, "Do you hear it?  Plane-Train... they sound like AIN" and I know that eventually he'll learn by example... he'll get it!

This book is also great because on the next page, it has the answers shown.  I'm sure this will be helpful for children working solo (older kids).  For us, it's always just exciting to see that they match and he was right!

This book has 192 pages, (96 pages with questions on it)... and 301 questions!  We're about half way done and we've been working consistently for about 2 months.  It'll probably take us another month to complete.

Overall, I'm really impressed with how it's helping Marco improve his concentration and focus.





And better than anything... he LIKES doing his homework.  He ASKS to do it.  When we're done for the day, I draw a design on his hand or give him a sticker for his efforts... he likes this best!