new math for old people

Charlie was working on his math homework.

Okay, first let me say, that I did not have homework in grade school. Other than a diorama in November of 6th grade, which I LOVED doing, and made little Indian girls, and clay pots, and tiny little corn in a shoe box.....but I digress. Maybe I am just getting too old to actually remember what I did in grade school, but I am quite confident that I did not have much in the way of homework until I was a senior in high school. But maybe that was just Bemidji. So when I went off to college, it was really overwhelming.

So I am glad Charlie has homework. He has to learn time management, and to realize that there are more important things than playing his xbox. Not to mention all of the other wonderful things he is learning. But honestly, the new math? wow. Thank goodness they send home an answer sheet. Because math really isn't my best subject. Even though I took all of the advanced math classes in high school, I avoided it like the plague in college. And now I am a bookkeeper. go figure. Thank god for calculators.

The question is, if I have to use the answer sheet in FOURTH GRADE, what will I do when he comes home with advanced trigonometry homework in 8th grade?????? Will the teachers still send me home an answer sheet?

All of you who have older kids, do I need to lose sleep over this? Help me out here. And thank goodness I have you. Otherwise I see many dollars spent hiring tutors, because I can't help my child figure out his math.

And then there is spelling. One of the words on his list this week is 'perspicacious'. I don't even know what it MEANS, let alone be able to spell it off the top of my head. Or how about 'paradigmatic'? (seriously, I had to go and get the list off the fridge so I would spell it right for this post.) And Charlie will review the words on Friday morning, before he heads to school, and won't get more than 1 or 2 wrong, if any.

Amy (Charlie's beloved teacher this year, who I know checks out my blog)-you are amazing. Just don't tell Charlie to ask his mom to help him with his math homework without sending me an answer sheet.