Kindergarten Homework

Tonight my son, a kindergarten, brought home homework, for the very first time in his precious life. His assignment? Write his name correctly three times using that wonderful triple-lined paper that teaches children to round their letters ever-so-perfectly, and count aloud to twenty a few times.

David has watched his sisters do all kinds of homework over the last few years. Kaitlyn, his oldest sister, musters the energy to learn pre-algebra, negative numbers, properties, and the like. Rachel, the next oldest drills on lists of 25 spelling words, Bible memorization, and long division. Meagan works on reading for thirty minutes a night, long addition and subtraction, and multiplication tables.

So one can only imagine the reaction of the sisters when David's homework was to write his name three times and count to twenty. "Just wait, David. Pretty soon you'll be doing a lot more than that!!!"

David's reaction to his first night of homework? "I hate homework."

Now in all honestly, David did not hate his homework. In fact, he sat right down with a sharpened pencil in hand and readily got to work making nicely rounded letters for his name. He didn't need Mike's help. He knew how to do it all by himself, he said. Well, he needed a little help making the letters stretch to fit the first and third lines, but when he was finished, he relished his success. He was proud of his accomlishment. He had tackled the world of homework for the first time, and he was victorious.

While he was counting to twenty and missing number fifteen, my mind flew back to his birth, the times that his sisters were in kindergarten, and I thought about how fast they are growing up. David will get to do homework for another thirteen years, give or take all of his college and graduate years. For now, he says he hates it. But I am praying that he will continue to feel that awesome sense of fulfillment with each educational step he takes. In all actuality, pretty soon he will be doing long addition, negative numbers, reading for thirty minutes, and studying spelling words. We'll be by him helping him every step of the way and cheering him on to whatever God has in store for him.

Kindergarten homework. Who would have thought? I'm glad he gets to share in the joys of homework. One day later this week he gets to draw a picture of his teacher as his homework. If he still hates homework by Thursday, maybe he'll draw a VERY interstering picture of Mrs. West, even though he loves her.