Grammar homework
I can speak french, but I am the first to admit that when it comes to writing it, I panic. Like with maths. At work, I stick to writing carefully pre-prepared sentences that may be adapted if necessary. My colleagues must think that I am very dull and limited.
I blame it on my home school education. We had rather a lot of choice about what to ’study’. And out in the Sahara there were not many headmasters looking over our shoulders. It is not that we didn’t learn a huge amount, but the boring books with grammar and mathematics tended to get pushed back into the cardboard box from whence they came.
But now, it is all coming back to haunt me. My boys are coming home from school wanting help with their french homework and needing to learn their times tables. Fortunately the grammar does not seem to worry them and I happily learn along with them.
As for the times tables and the spelling, we find that the kitchen tiles are very useful.
What you do is this. You count the number of tiles in a straight line as there are spellings or tables (ie 12). Then the child stands on the first square and you sit on a stool at the end of the row with a bowl full of Haribo sweets or squares of chocolate. For every word or sum they get right they move forward one square. For every one they get wrong… you guessed it. Eventually they make it to the sweetie bowl (which may now be half empty if it was chocolate!)
Well, it works now. I’m not sure what I will do when it comes to secondary school ‘devoirs’.
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