Verbs+ action verbs+ counting money=meltdown

Jake receives a homework packet every week that is due on Friday. The last two weeks they seem to have been getting harder and harder (message to parents is they are preparing them for 2nd grade and 2nd grade expects alot out of them). As Jake and I sat at the table last night doing homework he breezed through the math part (obviously does not take after mommy) but as we got to the verb parts and counting money it became clear he was not quite sure what was what. I couldn't even tell what money was what and the verbs...I mean I know an action verb is something that shows action. You would think (or at least I do) that performer is an action verb, right? Wrong, it is not an action verb and it took another mom to tell me that! Isn't a performer performing something i.e. they are doing an action? Well, after 45 minutes on just the verbs and money Jake and I had it out. He was looking to me to give him the answers and I felt he wasn't trying hard enough. It's been a long week with Jason gone and I was running out of patience. We put the homework up, he was in tears and I called Jen. Thank God, she confirmed that indeed this homeworks was HARD and she had to just give Gracie some answers because how do we expect them to know that a half dollar+a nickel+ 2 pennies= .57???? They have not even seen a half dollar (and to be honest until Jen told me it was a halfdollar I did not even know. So, after haning up with Jen, Jake and I talked and I opologized to him. I was being to hard. He tries so hard. Tutoring on Mon. and Wed. so we decided he was taking a break today. Normally Wed. is late start (8:45) but because of turoring he has to be there at 7:30 so we skipped it today. I know, I know, if he doesn't know the work doesn't it make sense to go to tutoring so why did I let him skip? He needed a break. We all need a break sometimes. We've decided that now when we are working on homework and one of us gets frustrated we each just say "take 5" and that means we leave the table and we'll meet back in 5 minutes to start again. Jake got a good night's sleep, slept in, had eggs for breakfast and was ready for school. Tonight, we'll finish our homework.