She has the following...
An Oxford Reading Tree book that is as dull as dishwater.
A white board, plus marker and eraser.
Sheets that she's used to practise today (the letters s a and t).
An envelope with laminated words, letters and numbers as follows:
1
2
3
s
a
t
and
I
we
come
up
Preschool drop off/pick up is chaos and I was given this bag full of stuff with a cheery 'here's some things for her to practise at home' and shoved out the door.
So we've read the dull book. She can write s a and t (which she could do anyway tbh) so we've written it a few times and she's remarked that it spells sat and if you changed the s for an m it would be mat. We covered 'sh' briefly as the aforementioned book is all about 'sh'. Some child or other with a ship shop and some shells. I resisted quite admirably the urge to get her to sound out s-h-i-t. She knows her numbers up to 20 so can recognise and write them. But what else? Am I supposed to be teaching her the words in the envelope? And what? As flashcards? Or to sound them out? Or write them?
She's 3yrs old and I'm inclined to just let her go and dig up some worms tbh. But they've told me to write something in her homework book when she's finished. I'm tempted to write "dd spent Monday evening pretending to be Spiderman. She recognises this begins with s, as does the spaghetti she had for dinner. She liked the white board marker and used it to draw a spider motif on her chest to aid in aforementioned superhero aping'.
WTF am I doing here?
Get advice from other Mumsnetters to find the best nursery for your child on our Preschool forum.
Preschool education
DD has just brought her first homework home. I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to 'do' with it.
ShowOfHands · 09/05/2011 17:51
"dd spent Monday evening pretending to be Spiderman. She recognises this begins with s, as does the spaghetti she had for dinner. She liked the white board marker and used it to draw a spider motif on her chest to aid in aforementioned superhero aping'.
Yes, please write this. 
While she digs up worms.
And if you think that book was dull, wait until she is on level 8. Not only are they still dull, they take longer to read.
The wonders of the world of the magic key await you ShowOfHands. You have no idea..... 
How many children do you have? I thought the first time round was bad but then you do it all again with DC2.
As an Early Years practitioner I strongly suggest that, unless your DD is desperate to do this homework for fun, you ask the pre-school to forget trying to teach her numbers and letters and send her out to find more worms. There are many, many far more important things she should be learning just now. Yes the PE changing is useful but playing with water, exploring gloop and mud, pretending to cook the dinner, etc are far more useful to her in terms of being a successful learner in the future.
This 'homework' could do far more harm than good in the hands of a less enlightened parent than yourself.
DD is my only child atm so this is all new to me.
I must say that we love the preschool. She does all the playing, splashing, singing, reading, dancing, instrument-playing etc that her heart desires.
I do understand in some ways why they've introduced what they're referring to as a 'stepping up' programme. Because some children such as dd enjoy it and if they come to it willingly and want to do it then I can't disagree with it. It is also only one afternoon a week, the rest of the week is mostly free play. And they're trying to prepare them for moving up into the primary school which has a mixed age class and is a very different environment to the preschool. DD however, is not going to this primary, she's going to one out of catchment (only a couple of miles away) which has a separate reception class. This was the key thing that sold it to me. It was a lot more like I expect a reception class to be. On visiting the catchment primary, it was clear that due to the mixed ages, there was more emphasis on formal learning. Perhaps it does make sense that they're slightly prepared for this. I did notice the 4yr olds struggling with tasks that the 6yr olds were becoming bored with when we visited. But I'm not sure pushing the preschoolers before they're ready is the way to deal with this. To be utterly honest, the school has a lot of problems and this is the least of them. If the preschool is bridging a perceived gap then I'm glad dd won't be going there.
To my mind preparing dd for school has been more about teaching her to share, clean herself properly after going to the toilet, wait her turn, do up her laces, get changed quickly and neatly, navigating some of the thorny social situations that come up (one toy, two children) etc. Everything else is just enjoying being a child.
I'm letting dd do what she wants to do with the letters/numbers/words. I answer her questions about what the words are. I assume if they're 'sight words' then that's all they expect. I've read the dull book, played eye spy and then put the thing in the drawer.
DD does have a good grasp of numbers and recognises all letters but from reading great, funny, engaging, wonderful books and counting shells on the beach and singing silly songs. You won't convince me that isn't the best way to learn at her age.
I'm afraid I did write a rather sarcastic message in her homework book. Her keyworker read it this morning, laughed and asked dd if she wanted to go and play dinosaurs on the trampoline. Much more like it
Oh and, er, pretending to cook dinner? Actually letting her cook dinner is a no no then? Better do it myself tonight...
Don’t want to miss threads like this?
Weekly
Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!
Log in to update your newsletter preferences.
You've subscribed!
You clearly know what you're doing, OP
I'm with you on the choice of school. At three years old I would much rather see the pre-school staff getting the children questioning and experimenting than learning letters and numbers but if she's enjoying it it's doing no harm.
The EYFS is very clear that children should be learning through play so it's a shame that the catchment school are making them sit down to complete prescribed tasks but at least your little one will be in a more appropriate environment.
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.