Do what I did. Go to the public library after school and do the homework there. Lots of reference materials, a nice quiet place to concentrate without distractions of TV. The 20 minutes will accomplish a lot.
You did that as a first grader?
This is a serious problem, actually. Each year of school adds more and more homework to the schedule. 20 minutes in first grade, and by the time a child hits high school it is a ‘mere’ 30 to 40 minutes per class. So after sitting through 6 periods of class time during the day (7+ hours) the kids have to go home and spend another 3 to 4 hours of homework at night.
And guess what? It isn’t working.
Time to do a top to bottom review of how we are teaching kids.
“a nice quiet place to concentrate without distractions of TV”
Analog surfing the card catalog for one thing then finding something more appealing was always distracting...