Stupid activity of the week for our kids (this is for 6th grade):

1. Select an object. (He chose a book.)
2. Measure the dimensions of the object 
3. Calculate the surface area and volume.
4. If you were to place this object into a cylindrical mailing tube, what should be the dimensions of the tube?
5. What about a triangular prism?
6. Rectangular prism?
7. What are the surface areas and volumes of these boxes?
8. Determine which of these boxes fits your object best.
9. Explain why.
10. BUILD THE BOX!!

• Time required: 90 minutes, minimum.
• Educational value (0-10): 2. 
• Opportunity cost (cost of time wasted which could have been spent doing something useful, instead of cutting and taping cardboard) (0-10): 9.
• Teacher's perception of the "fun" value of project (0-10): 9.
• Students' perception of the "fun" value of project (0-10): 0.
• Potential student frustration level when the cardboard doesn't cut and the tape doesn't stick (0-10): 8.
• Requisite parent participation level when frustrated kid wastes an hour and a half on a dumb-&^% and pointless assignment building a box, and parent gets exasperated by the time wasted and takes over (0-10): 6.

Addendum: Apparently, this got worse. In class today, they had to make up a story about where they were sending the box!

From our 8th grader's homework this week: write a personal essay about a time you were separated from a friend. The teacher explicitly wanted the students to explore "strong emotions".

This was a horrible assignment for our kid. Until she moved to her current school, she got along with everybody, but wasn't really good friends with anybody. She really had no situation that fit the description of the essay. Furthermore, she hates, hates! disclosing emotion to strangers and doesn't see why she has to share intimate details with her teacher.