21 No Homework Passes

Well, maybe I won't have to worry about how much homework A has. He came home with 21 homework passes today. Since he only gets homework Mon - Thur, that's 5 weeks of no homework. But since much of Thursday's homework is reviewing for spelling and reading tests, a homework pass doesn't do much good - so 21 passes would equal 7 weeks of M-W free of homework. Hmmm. This doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Especially since he is earning these passes by earning AR points and, although he has already earned double the number of points required for the year, he will clearly earn a lot more points. Those Harry Potter books are worth a lot of points. I think he's taken the tests on 2 or 3 of the 7 HP books so far.

I think I'll be having a chat with the teacher on whether there are other things he could "earn" with his AR points (or his homework passes). Perhaps reading time in the library loft? Or when M had this teacher, she let the kids earn lunch in the classroom with a movie once a month.

As much as I think that too much homework is bad for a kid, I also realize that a certain amount of it is useful to reinforce concepts and to let the parents see what the kid is learning. I'm hoping for a happy medium here.