Dad Baffled By Son's Kindergarten Homework: 'Gave Up'

A dad was confused at the seemingly impossible homework set for his son in Kindergarten, and he told Newsweek how nobody else he asked could figure it out either. Quito, who lives on O'ahu in Hawaii and asked that his full name be omitted from the story, turned to Reddit for help with the baffling assignment set for his 5-year-old son. Posting under the handle u/QuitoBurrito, the confused dad shared a screenshot of the homework sheet that asked pupils to add one letter to finish each of the words listed. Each of them came with a clue: an illustration showing the completed word in action.

However, as the image shows, one question appeared bafflingly obtuse: a picture of a girl with her arm stuck out alongside the incomplete word "fa_" The National Education Association recommends no more than 10 minutes of homework per grade. Quito's son ended up spending significantly more time on this piece of work though. "My wife was going over it with our son and she texted me asking what the word could be," Quito told Newsweek. "I was completely stumped. 'Far' was the only thing I could think of. My wife just said 'it better not be fat.' " Quito said he "asked everyone" in his office but they could not figure it out. "I posted it to a chat I have with my cousins and they couldn't guess it," he said. From there, Quito decided to post it to Reddit alongside a caption that simply read: "We gave up." They were quickly able to deduce what the answer most likely was. "Only thing I can think is that the F was supposed to be a J and it's Jab. But still idk if many kindergartners would know jab," one user wrote. Another, appeared to have formulated a theory as to how that might have happened. "F and J are not next to each other on the keyboard so how did the teacher who made this resource make that typo/mistake?" one asked with another replying: "F and J are both positioned under the index finger (just of different hands)." Quito agrees that the mistake was likely "some sort of copy and paste error when the worksheet was made." He still thinks it's an odd answer to include on a worksheet for young kids though.

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"It makes sense, but it's still mildly infuriating that they expect a 5-year-old to know what a 'jab' or a 'rim' is," he said. Quito was also mildly critical of his son's teacher for failing to spot the mistake before the homework was assigned. "I asked his teacher the next morning when I dropped him off and she said she didn't know and just failed to look over the whole worksheet before printing and handing it out," he said. Ultimately though, he's able to see the funny side in what happened, and among the theories as to what the answer might be, was amused by the "extremely entertaining comments" left on the post." They included guesses like "fatherless," "faith" and "fart." "FAFO - F Around Find Out? The child in the picture is clearly a boxer," one user suggested. "Far q up," another wrote. All incorrect, but amusing nonetheless.