I have to agree with pp. Extra-curricular activities are secondary. Cat--seems like I remember your daughter being in a dance class everyday? There is no way my girls could go to school all day, then have an after school activity, and do homework/reading, etc. every night. Nevermind dinner and a bath when necessary!

I also think MStar's kids are in afternoon K for 3 hours. There is a big difference in being in all day kindergarten (school starts at 7:45am and ends at 2:35pm for us) vs. half day. My kids are exhausted and ready for bed by 7pm if not earlier. They get up early for school and that's with me dropping them off (no bus system in our district).

My advice to you is to prioritize what is really important for the kids and what they really need to work on. If they know their sight words--SKIP it. If they benefit more from reading to you, then do that instead of reading to them (or read them 1 small book). We never get worksheets to do at home--they do tons at school. But we do have family projects and we usually tackle them on the weekends. Most weekly assignments we get a couple days to work on.

I've quit writing in their reading logs b/c my girls are reading on a constant basis now. I think the teacher is aware of that so we focus on their reading packs (books that they are bringing home to read to us.) Our 2 extracurricular activities are violin and that is Fri after school (so no pressure to come home and do homework afterwards). Our other activity is chess and that is on Sun afternoon. So that leaves the week to focus on the important school work that they really need to do and benefit from.

I want to get back to dance/gymnastics which they did last year before K started. But right now I refuse to make their day and my day any more stressful/exhausting than it needs to be. Hopefully, in 1st grade, they will have more stamina and we can add dance/gym back to our schedule. We will definitely do it this summer and give soccer or softball a try!

Hope my perspective helps!
--Pops