Renzo invented a new way to complete his homework faster

As I have mentioned many times in the past, I am not a fan of enrichment classes so Renzo has been attending one and only one enrichment so far - Piano.

He has a lovely piano teacher who sees him once a week for 45 minutes, he's learning the basics now and he has homework to do after each lesson, usually one page of coloring and a few pages of notes reading. I must say knowing his letters and numbers well before the age of 4 is an added advantage to him, as he could easily cope with his homework independently.

So besides some random, well indeed frequent "complaints" from his childcare teachers, about him being extremely slow in doing his school work, I think he's absorbing well in school. His teachers will update us on his progress, and let us view his school work on a monthly basis. Just some of the examples here:

But, getting him to do his homework at home, is forever a chore, not to forget he has only one type of homework to do at the moment, I can't imagine how to manage when there are more coming in the near future. Spelling being one of the many which his childcare will start in July this year. I am pretty sure many parents experience the same, pulling their hairs out to get their kids study, is nothing unheard of.

We have tried to give him monetary rewards and that's how he managed to get a few new Thomas train toys, but I don't like the moral value behind this, as if he should be rewarded for doing homework but in actual fact, it's his own responsibility and it's for his own good. And Daddy likes to time him, so you often see a digital clock counting down right in front of his face, while he's rushing to finish things up. But usually that leads him to nonstop cries and whines as he feels being pressurized, or even threatened. I personally don't like that idea either as I don't think he can deliver quality work when we set a time limit, though yes he for sure needs to get his work done in due time but that clock, just annoys me at the same time too =(

I truly think that kids are able to do well with things they are interested in, that is why we often promote the idea to foster good learning habit. Just look at the drawings from him recently, you can see he simply enjoys doing it, thus he takes his own initiative, puts in more efforts and does an awesome job!!

So I've found what I claimed the most efficient way to get him work on his homework. One night, I have some urgent things to settle for work so I told him that after shower, he has to sit down and do his piano homework, and I will work on my company laptop right besides him. That worked wonders! He managed to finish 8 pages of notes reading in one shot, whereby usually his best record is 3 pages. He even checked on me a few times and reminded me to "work hard, so I can get a better job with better pay (well nope I am not leaving my wonderful company and my boss)".

Since that night, I formed a habit to sit near him, work on my laptop or read a book while he's doing his homework. I feel that I am setting a good example by studying/working at the same time, rather than sitting down with him and bossing around.

But interestingly, he has slowly found a new and fun way, to make himself even more efficient - MULTITASKING!!

Take a look at this video, by repeating the notes of a song he learned at pianica class in his childcare center, he sets a right tempo and gets his homework done even faster!! As he repeatedly sang the notes, he wrote row by row and moved extremely fast to the end of the page till he couldn't even believe in his speed!!

So 30 pages of notes reading in 2 weeks time, of which, he finished about 6 pages during week 1, and the rest 24 pages were all done in week 2 after we figured out the above 2 ways!! Amazing isn't it??!!