If your child is currently a HGC in 4th or 5th grade

[Anonymous]

...is there a great deal of homework in the center program? We're considering applying, but really are not interested in our fourth-grader having tons of homework. Am interested in hearing from people who are experiencing it now. TIA.

[Anonymous]

OP--sorry, meant "if your child is IN a HGC," LOL.

[Anonymous]

No -- it's not a lot of homework. I have one in HGC and one in regular, one year apart, so I have a good basis for comparison.

It's more homework than the neighborhood school has (which is about 30 - 40 minutes per night, usually, plus nightly reading) but not a lot -- less than an hour a night most of the time. The hardest part is staying organized and on top of the long term projects (only one at a time) and reading -- it's not that they take a lot of time but they have many parts and you can't get behind on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No -- it's not a lot of homework. I have one in HGC and one in regular, one year apart, so I have a good basis for comparison.

It's more homework than the neighborhood school has (which is about 30 - 40 minutes per night, usually, plus nightly reading) but not a lot -- less than an hour a night most of the time. The hardest part is staying organized and on top of the long term projects (only one at a time) and reading -- it's not that they take a lot of time but they have many parts and you can't get behind on them.

OP here--thanks! Would you mind please giving me an example of the kind of projects you mean?

[Anonymous]

Sure. There's an author project, where you choose an author and read three books (not part of a series) that the author wrote, plus one book-length biography of the author. The level of author is middle school/young adult.

Then you do 7 or 8 things related to the author -- you can pick from a longer list for some of them. Some are more artistic (create a poster etc.) and some are more academic (identifying thematic elements). You write a couple of essays that are several pages long, and make a presentation about your author. The project goes on for a couple of months, with due dates for draft and final items scattered throughout.

It's a fantastic, in-depth project! A lot of it is done in class during specific working times, but there is work done at home too. And while none of the individual elements is difficult, the hard part is managing your schedule and not leaving everything until the last minute.

There are similar projects where you imagine yourself as a kid in the country of your ancestors and write/illustrate book about it, do an in-depth and multi-step project on a state you choose, and do a project on a native American tribe.

While this is going on, there are regular assignments in reading, math, science, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sure. There's an author project, where you choose an author and read three books (not part of a series) that the author wrote, plus one book-length biography of the author. The level of author is middle school/young adult.

Then you do 7 or 8 things related to the author -- you can pick from a longer list for some of them. Some are more artistic (create a poster etc.) and some are more academic (identifying thematic elements). You write a couple of essays that are several pages long, and make a presentation about your author. The project goes on for a couple of months, with due dates for draft and final items scattered throughout.

It's a fantastic, in-depth project! A lot of it is done in class during specific working times, but there is work done at home too. And while none of the individual elements is difficult, the hard part is managing your schedule and not leaving everything until the last minute.

There are similar projects where you imagine yourself as a kid in the country of your ancestors and write/illustrate book about it, do an in-depth and multi-step project on a state you choose, and do a project on a native American tribe.

While this is going on, there are regular assignments in reading, math, science, etc.

Is this 4th or 5th grade? What kind of projects they do in science and social studie?

[Anonymous]

I think the author's project was in 5th. (DS is now in 6th.) The states project is in 5th. Illlustrated book and native American project are in 4th.

I guess the states project and native American project counted as social studies.

Science -- mostly done in class. I think they were more standard projects that all MCPS 4th and 5th graders do, like an ecosystem project ...

[Anonymous]

OP here--thank you for the project descriptions, that is very helpful. It does sound like a lot of homework though!

[Anonymous]

It is if, like my son, you leave it all until the night before it's due!

If your kid keeps up with the schedule, it's not all that much on a daily basis and a lot of it is done in class.

[Anonymous]

Definitely not a lot of homework. Caveat might be that if your child is a slow reader, then it might be burdensome.

We found, at least at our Center, that projects almost NEVER required work at home. All projects come with multiple internal deadlines (writing organizer, first draft, author's conference, rewrite, final draft, etc.), so it's nearly impossible to "leave it all until the last minute." Also, extensive time is set aside in school for both research (on the internet) and writing. This is really different from the way I grew up, when all writing and research projects were done at home as "homework." I don't know why the change? The cynical part of me wonders if too many parents were writing papers. The way our HGC handles projects, it's virtually impossible for the parents to have any participation -- which is a good thing.

The exception to this experience was the school science fair project (which all students do), which required a lot of work at home, but still had multiple internal deadlines and lots of teacher oversight.