That's funny. I thought I finished 3rd grade in 1985.

Since we got Buddy Joe, BabyGirl has been getting her homework done on the bus or in the gym after school leaving her more time to play at home. I've loved it. The nightly homework battles have dwindled down to mild & infrequent skirmishes. Or so I thought.

Yesterday, minutes before the kids got off the bus, BabyGirl's teacher called me. Apparently, my daughter had been stashing unfinished class work in her desk instead of bringing it home to work on. There was a stack of pages she hadn't turned in that needed to be done tucked into her take home folder last night. When I confronted her, she said, "It wasn't homework, Mom. It was class work. We're not supposed to take it home. We're supposed to finish it in class." I told her from here on out, what isn't finished at school comes home.

To top it off, #1 Son had T-ball practice. With Husband working evenings, that means we all have to go to practice. She took her work with her, but got precious little accomplished at the ball diamond. At home it was a long, drawn out war trying to get at least a fraction of the material finished. Mrs.B told me we wouldn't get it all done & to send back what we didn't have time for. They'd work on it today & send the rest home for the weekend if needed.

Well, it was needed. Ugh.

They didn't have time to work on it today at school, so she came home with the same amount I sent back to school yesterday. Wait. That's not entirely true. She came home with more. She also has a manila envelope full of pages of math problems. It's a new thing they're working on. For every packet of pages she completes, she gets a prize. I'm using the math as a bribe to get the grammar, spelling, and social studies finished. Do a page of grammar, get a page of math. Never thought that would happen. Math as a bribe....but when the math comes with treats like extra recess time, it does the trick.

I also copied off pages of her unfinished homework & sat next to her doing it myself. We'd go through each page together making sure we both understood the work. BabyGirl saw it as a bit of a competition, so she flew through the pages trying to beat me. It made it much easier for me to check her work knowing exactly what needed to be done.

She's nearly finished with the "must do" work & has taken a decent bite out of the "bribe prize" work. I am so ready for summer vacation. Third grade is tough!