Sammy's latest activity after finishing his homework. He didn't just say yes, so I guess that's something . . .
And a quick story:
Sam does not have homework over the weekends. The school policy is that weekends should be family time, not school time. Obviously this will change as he gets older. And apparently he already knows it, because on Friday he convinced his table to ask for extra homework over the weekend. And true to genetic form, the Stoddard boy ended up doing his homework on Monday morning five minutes before he walked out the door.
I looked over his shoulder as he toiled away, endlessly adding and subtracting single digit numbers. His math homework has been the same thing since January. I'm all for rote memorization in some areas, but Sam doesn't need to see something more than twice for him to remember it. He told me weeks ago that he is very bored with school, so at home we've learned a bit of everything: algebraic equations, basic geometry, multiplication, addition and subtraction of integers (that's negative numbers for you liberal arts majors), and how to "carry over" for adding large strings of numbers. He just soaks it all in. I discovered last week that he has essentially taught himself fractions, thanks to his Leap Pad.
When I told his teacher that he's been learning how to solve equations at home, her eyes nearly popped out of her head. I'm pretty sure she thought I was full of crap. As I examined his last sheet this morning, I did a double take. It was an entire sheet of advanced double digit, multiple number addition problems. His teacher was actually testing both him and me.
He finished the entire sheet in less than five minutes. Take that, Mrs. Sullivan!!!
