Homework

My five year old daughter gets homework! Aside from reading books she brings home 3 times a week, they have 'learning logs', which are books in which they have to complete different activities depending on what they're learning about that particular week. This week it's a bit of a mixed bag. She has to design an Olympic's poster for a competition at school, look at a map of the world and talk about where different fruits come from (oranges - Spain, wine, I mean grapes - err France? Mummy will need to consult Homeworkipedia for that one), some maths, and some spellings. So tonight we started with the Olympic's poster. We got off to a flying start, with The Daughter quite firmly telling me that she didn't need any help, but I had to sit and hand her the felt tips. It's nice to have a purpose in life don't you know. I'm ashamed to say I wasn't quite sure of the order of the Olympic rings, or the colours, so I quickly consulted Google while Her Ladyship was deciding what sports she was going to draw. The first was swimming, in which the lone swimmer was as nekked as a jaybird. Not wishing to discourage the little bean while she was in her artistic element, I stifled a smirk and let her creative juices flow. Next was running, and after she'd drawn the track and a few men, she asked me "Do they wear clothes when they're running?". This time I had to hide behind my arm as my imagination ran wild, thinking about 'Naked Olympics' and meat and two veg bouncing towards the camera during the 100m! Next came the chairs for people to sit on - "the spectators" I informed her. "They have to wear clothes don't they?" she asked, and it was all I could do to emit a squeaky "Mmm-hmm", whilst wondering where the sudden fascination with nudity in sport had come from.

After she'd drawn the winners on their podiums and a trophy, she wanted to know what other sports she could draw, so Mummy suggested cycling. She huffed and puffed through the first bike and was clearly dissatisfied with the result, so bike number 2 was.....err, what is that? "A SCOOTER!" she barked at me, like I was the world's biggest moron. The thought of naked athletes on scooters was the straw that broke the camels back and I dissolved into hysterics, at which point The husband walked past shaking his head disapprovingly at me and hissed "You beast" in my ear. He's right, I'm a terrible Mummy.

I decided we had time before bed to look at the 2d and 3d shapes they'd been learning about. Rectangle yes, hexagon - all fairly straightforward, cuboid... What the dillydickens is a cuboid?! Is that what the kids these days are calling cubes, because in my day a cube was a bloody cube?! No. According to Google it is a 3d rectangle. At this point I admit defeat, I'm just not cut out for this homework malarky and she's only in reception class. I wonder how much it is for a personal tutor?