Helping with the homework

We had a very busy afternoon yesterday doing the homework.  It is such a family affair for us.  All the kids are learning French at the moment and the thing that gets to me about it is that they all seem to be learning the same thing.  When do they make any progress past being able to say the name of a list of about 20 professions and that they are annoyed with someone.  Is that all there is to learning french?
Matilda is writing a poem (again).  It seems that Theo is always writing a brochure about something, and Matilda is always writing a poem.  Matilda really likes writing a poem and she is a fast and intuitive rhymer - although gratuitous (for distance yesterday she was rhyming 'fresh' with 'Bangladesh' , not because it makes sense for the poem, but because it was the only word she can think of).  I suppose you can buy a rhyming dictionary to help in these emergency situations, but we were on our own.  In the end she decided to use 'stress'.  She was not really happy as it is not an exact rhyme.
Toby continues on writing his 'Journey through Africa'  He sure has picked some obscure places to journey through.  He thought that it would be neat to write the bits about the countries where they speak French in French, except that as he can really only write about job descriptions and whether or not he is annoyed with his brother/sister/ friend or parent he would have to stick to English.  He started out with 'The sun rose over Africa'  which is a great first line, but has been used elsewhere I believe.  How much do I intervene?  He was also writing 3 paragraphs in the first person about a travellers impression of pentecost.  Again it would have been nice to bring in the languages, but one of the few professions he has not learnt yet in French is crucifix maker (I think that is what his character was supposed to be), so same old same old.