Bloody Easter Homework

It's meant to be inspiration.

I hardly think the teacher is going to expect every child to turn up with something equivalent to the link.

Some of the craftier kids might have an attempt at one of the simpler ones with thick cardstock.

@Kandalama
I was so hoping that you were going to say "He's now 24 and is an entomologist"!
🐞 🪲 🐜 🐝 🐞 🪲 🐜 🐝

Here’s a moving toy hint.

• Buy one of those little wind up toys.
• Take out the mechanism and put it in a matchbox with a hole in the match box for the winder
• Then get some Fimo and make something to go on top.

My son drapped strips of Fimo over to form a bug. I think it was a woodlouce because it was the easiest to do in his opinion.

• Leave the Fimo to harden. Job done.

Ps. He won the class prize and still has it on his shelf. He’s now 24 😁

Yes, but imagine how the child would feel if he turned up empty handed, and all the others were proudly showing off their brilliant efforts!

My sons didn't have a creative bone in their body, so things like this were flipping impossible

Same...DD and I once did his entire holiday project of making a ww2 bomb shelter out of a shoebox. When he returned to school, he had to write a piece about how he'd made it. All credit to his honesty because he literally wrote, "my mum and sister did it" 😂

I was prepared to say YANBU, but then saw your child is in year 5. By that age I would expect most children to be able to make something independently that meets the brief.

At worst, I'd expect to spend five minutes helping them to find a webpage with instructions on making pop-ups etc, then set them going on the artwork for a bit (prompting them to get back on task and stop watching the YouTube brain-rot as needed). Finally , and only if they haven't managed it unaided, help them to assemble the final product at the end.

Doesn't sound too bad, TBH.

My sons didn't have a creative bone in their body, so things like this were flipping impossible. They were sport mad and didn't want to be indoors making something. One year we had to make a Shakespearean theatre!! And this was Y6.

I put my foot down, and made my son look up Shakespearean theatres and learn 5 things about them which showed how different they were to today's theatres. I told the class teacher what I had done and why, and he was fine about it.

I feel for you.

You do realise it’s completely optional?

That’s rubbish; we used to do that as a full half term of DT within school.

also homework is not statutory for primary age children.

Presumably the revision as they’re GCSE year and so revising daily through the holidays is surely expected. Your dc will have a massive summer holiday after exams they can rest in.

Used to annoy me enormously when my DCs got holiday homework. (Except in y11 and y13). It used to stop DC1 from reading or it prevented us from doing something as a family. Having said that, I think my DCs might have enjoyed this homework but I would not have enjoyed supervising it. I do question whether it's really a necessary homework and I suspect the teacher has set it because the school policy says they have to.

DC2 hardly ever did the homework at that age and never got into trouble. They did 100% of their homework in secondary school and are now at uni, hoping to finish with a 1st.

There will be people away for the full 2 weeks; people with something planned every day - I wouldn't bother with an excuse, I'd just say "no".

DD is home educated now but back when she was in school, we had pretty much every day of the holiday mapped out with plans and activities, so homework would have had a simple "no" from me.

To those who say the child can tackle the project himself, I bet said child will be saying Mum….after 10 minutes! I think the project should be optional, removing pressure on children. There will be fantastic moving toys on return to school- made by Dad!

We never ever gave homework over holidays. I think the parents would probably have refused to do it. What if you were away for the whole 2 weeks?

I hated these "make a ........" projects. They were usually done by the parents anyway.

Order this and sell the spare three to desperate parents the night before school starts at hyper inflated prices.
https://amzn.eu/d/b589mPk

We didn’t do crafts in the school holidays as DH and I were at full time work and DT’s were in holiday clubs doing things they wanted to do - usually sports not indoors messing around with cardboard and glue!

Homework is optional in primary so why mess up the holiday time with something not necessary?
The point of a school holiday is not to be doing school work.

To me it sounds like the school gets pressure from parents when they don’t provide homework so the teacher has thought of a task that the children can take as far as they want to take it. It could take five minutes or five days.

Yesterday in my 50 minute lunch break I…
spent ten minutes in the hall as one of the middays was late.
ate my lunch in the classroom with a child who was disregulated so couldn’t go in the hall
found and photocopied a booklet of homework for a child who was going to his grandparents unexpectedly in the holidays so his parents wanted me to provide a daily activity for him.
marked 22 spelling tests and stuck in next weeks works
ate

This used to annoy me when my child was in primary school. Teachers seemed to forget that the rest of us are working full time and juggling so much just to keep our heads above water during ‘the holidays’. As a single parent with no help my child was usually in clubs for the holidays. Which was absolute rubbish and no break for us! The last thing either of us needed was a whacky project. I remember spending a whole day building some ridiculous holiday project one year, which neither of us enjoyed and I vowed never again! My days off with my child are precious! I want to spend the day dong something we both enjoy. Anyway, I’m rambling… In this case… I’d get child to build something in Lego and put some wheels on it. Done.

Those GCSE revision lessons on offer for your 16 year old will undoubtedly be delivered by teachers whose headteachers have put pressure on them, and they probably won't receive any payment either.

ETA I see you've responded to someone else who made a similar point. Lighthearted indeed. 🙄

And fwiw my dc were amazing at using scissors at the age of 2-3 because I let them free play with kids scissors…and did crafts then…when they were at home all day and so was I!

When dc were that age @Easterchick25 they made balloon cars, something like this: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/stem-activities/balloon-car

Vaguely recall one of them at least being sent home with dowels/wheels and maybe even cardboard.

When they were in Y6 though they had to come up with a working fairground ride 😱