helping with school work at home

[Candy]

Hi all! Okay I know it's the hols but wonder if anyone can help. My six year old absolutely LOVES school, so much so that she was really keen for lots of homework to do in the summer. Despite asking teacher many times, she wasn't given any (but I'll refrain from snarling!).

Does anyone know of good materials I can download or buy for her that she can do over the holiday?
Whilst obviously she has SATs at the end of next year, this is not the priority - she just wants something fun but vaguely educational. Cheers!

[Suew]

Candy, have you tried the BBC website?

The education pages have lots of activities and information pages. I've downloaded games for my daughter from the Words and Pictures section which you can print outand stick onto card. Might be too young for your daughter but some word games are fun for years.

There are also the Dorling Kindersley books you can buy from stationers.

[Mooma]

What a great website the BBC has created - I knew it for my older children because they use the Bitesize revision pages for GCSE & SATs. I didn't realise they had all that good stuff for the younger ones. You could also try www.learn.co.uk, which has material for age 7+

[Suew]

Mooma - I agree about the BBC website. I think it's fantastic. Worth the licence fee alone, almost!

My DD and I feature on it under the 'Webwise' section. A researcher appealed on a newsgroup I used to frequent about pregnancy and we were chosen. Sadly the links are out of date now I guess I ought to email them with up-to-date links (including one to here!) so other parents can benefit.

[Janh]

candy, most "good bookshops" have lots of workbooks for specific ages, not necessarily training for SATs but leading that way AND enjoyable for the child.

i have some from a couple of years ago - one lot by Letts, "starting out in...." - reading and writing, spelling, maths etc. and some by world international. the letts ones are in full colour. the world ones aren't but have gold stars to stick on! (there are other series too.)

all the ones i have are only half-finished, if that, my kids were never that keen to work at home! if you take her with you to look she can see what she likes best. (they do like workbooks, although schools tend to use photocopied sheets these days, with a book they can see how far they've got and how much they've done - very satisfying!)

[Stephb]

Crayola.com is a fab website. Not "schooly" as such but lots of puzzles, dot to dots, colour-by-numbers, and so on.

My girls are also very "keen", bless them, and I sometimes make up word searches for them on an appropriate theme, (eg "The Zoo"/ "The Beach"/ Holidays"). Just rule out a square grid, fill in all the words you can, and list each one to the side. I then fill in all the blank squares with the letters q, x and z to make it manageable for them (my girls are 5 and 7) and away they go! Max five minutes effort from you, and twenty minutes of earnest educational pencil chewing concentration for them!

Good luck! Have a lovely summer.