School Days: Homework for Summer Vacation

Here is a sample question of the fifth grade summer homework at Little Brother's school. They were asked to use a ruler, a protractor, and a compass to make the figure on the left with those measurements.

I want to point out how papers are marked here. When an answer is correct, it is circled. At Little Brother's school, homework is graded at home by a parent. This was started a couple of years ago. Students get checks for homework and numerical grades for tests. In elementary school, they get "can do it well", "can do it", and "needs more work" on their report cards.

Little Brother had other summer homework as well. He had to write kanji and read several books. He had to make something and write a report. He made paper and pizza. He also had to clean two things around the house. He had to think of a creative or unique way to do it. He cleaned the fuzz off a rug using masking tape. He scrubbed the bathroom sink with a toothbrush.

School has been in session for almost two weeks now. Little Brother had to carry everything back to school. (See the April posts for "School Days".)

Big sister is studying to take exams to get into high school next year. She had summer homework,too. She had to make appointments to visit three high schools. She had to study for exams in her classes the week after school started again. Even so, they both had some fun, too.