Holiday homework - repeller of boredom or wicked imposition? I remember having rather a love/hate relationship with it myself, depending on how much of a Life I had at that point.
No holiday homework has been distributed for Offspring in this house, but I have one Offspring at least who would probably have been be quite happy with it. Here’s a child who will attack a pile of reading books like a locust and has been known to ask for a page of sums to do - the sort of stage where sitting down and writing a poem is something ‘just for fun’.
So I’ve stocked up on library books and got some activity ideas simmering for just in case. What else? I’ve had a look at those workbooks you can buy to cover ‘core skills’. They always look like the sort of thing used by slightly over-ambitious parents. Of course they trumpet all over their cover how they tie-in to Key Stage this, that and the other. Not much use to the parent of a Scottish child. Although I’ve found all sorts of online educational equivalency charts, it can still be a bit baffling. If the exercises are too easy then Someone sails through them in four minutes - “Now what, Mum?” Too hard and they can be off-putting - and I spend great chunks of time trying to explain mathematical procedures and probably (gasp!) not explaining them in the officially recognised manner.
Online educational activities are possibly even more confusing, because so many of them are American. And I could spend so much time surfing through various advert-heavy, content-light websites that I may as well spend my evenings churning out my own pages of equations…
So what’s a parent to do to make the most of this eager, receptive and probably brief window of attitude in their Offspring’s development? Any pointers gratefully received - I’m off to do some revision…
Edinburgh Science Festival? http://www.sciencefestival.co.uk/
As a parent and teacher I think its always difficult to get the work/life balance. I also think that we often underestimate how hard children work during term time. Time is precious and so is freetime in our children’s lives. I’m a big fan of getting a good pair of wellies and exploring the outdoors. I have a very energetic Tibetan Terrier you could borrow?
I’d *love* to do the Science Festival with this Offspring, but the combination of a chronic lack of financial resources plus a TinySoup in tow make it extremely difficult
And hi there L - yes, depending on the child’s age, we’re wellying and walking, rolling eggs and feeding ducks and planting seeds and gardening and going to the park and probably the Botanic Gardens (that’s free…) and plenty more…
But we tend to have a midafternoon downtime when the TinySoup is asleep in bed so we’re not leaving the house. Even we can’t garden all the time! We’ve books to read and board games enough craft stuff around to stock a small village school…
What do you think I should say when asked for a page of sums?