WTF is this nonsense- teacher setting tasks like 'Make a meal' or 'Explore your garden with your five senses'

[ChillyColdBottle]

A) No, they are not 'making a meal' as we are in a take it or leave it situation due to not being able to leave the house

B) WTF?

Is it considered unacceptable to ask for some actual academic stuff that they can do silently?!

So are you planning on not eating any meals for 3 weeks? If you are why not let the kids help even in a small way? You need to lay off teachers and get involved or find your own alternatives. My sis is a teacher and is crying constantly with the stress of her 3 kids having to go to school and sending teaching lesson plans and looking after peoples kids.

Making a meal is not maintaining their education

Of course it is just off the top of my head.

They need to prepare the ingredients.
They need to know how to use equipment safely.
Follow a recipe or write one when they have finished making it.
They could take pictures and write instructions.
They could learn about where the ingredients came from.

Learning just through worksheets is quite possibly the most inadequate form of learning.

You're cooking anyway, just get them to help?
You should be including children in cooking anyway.
Teachers really can't win.

DD received her full timetable and 3 months worth of tasks for every subject on Friday via Classroom. She's expected to do PowerPoints, turn in work on google docs, and send photos in the meantime on a class FB group. It's quite heavy going!

I'm really liking the emails that my DDs teacher is sending us.
Today she's asked them to go outside, name what they can hear and find a certain number of things in different colours.
DD really enjoyed this and we took a picture and sent it to the teacher.

It's important to me that DD doesn't feel forgotten about by the school so the fact she knows her class are still in touch via the teacher and the teacher is still in touch with me makes her feel more secure.

Not everything is about academics OP. Loosen up a little!

Why would you think you would choose the wrong things? Anything appropriate for the key stage your daughter is in will be fine

Seriously? I haven't a clue where to start looking.

We are also aware of overloading the children at an already stressful time, and aware of too much screen time.

Worksheets are all well and good, but your children will probably learn more out of activities like those suggested by the teacher. Worksheets aren't really learning, they're just showing what a child knows already.

I think all offers of help should be encouraged even if they don’t particularly apply to your specific situation, they may help someone else.
Take advantage of the ones which are helpful to you, leave the ones which are not for someone else to enjoy.

Everyone is in their own circumstances.

Being a SAHM anyway (ex teacher, with history of supply) and with DH WFH hiding away, we can spend the attention to make sure our DCs do some sit-down learning. Not easy as one DC had SpLDs, and I need him keeping his skills up and benefiting from some 1:1 time will keep him in place for when he returns to school as he struggles with many aspects of the basics.

Other parents struggling for time and skills do not need lengthy lists of busy work to supervise.

Children are having an unsettled time and expecting them to replicate a school day in their home is unrealistic.

It's impossible for schools to win on keeping all families happy while continuing to teach/ mind children of keyworkers. Setting cover work was always a bitch of a task even in a classroom where you knew the resourcing. I don't envy teachers setting up this kind of cover work to be done daily.

Worksheets are difficult because lots of homes don't have printers anymore.

Tasks like cooking or looking in the garden are accessible to a much greater range of students.

I still don't understand the problem with them helping make a meal.

I'm reheating stuff from the freezer. The thought of them cooking makes me want to lie down and cry. It's not something that will be a nice family bonding activity.

If you want worksheets, email the teacher and ask for some additional resources.

But please be aware that teachers are under immense pressure to set work and will be criticised for both setting too much academic work or not enough.

Making a meal actually includes skills - reading through recipe books , choosing the ingredients, measuring them out, calculating cooking times to coincide with meal times, adjusting recipe for 2, 4 , 6 people et
Plus communication and reasoning skills.
Using your senses - can you identify the plants? Draw them? Label them?
Yes, you can do worksheets but they don’t necessarily involve stretching learnt skills or transferring them to other situations.
Worksheets are the easy option in many ways , and don’t necessarily stretch learning.
Teachers had very little warning that schools were shutting- while they were teaching your children during the day last week, they were going home to plan lessons for weeks ahead, finding resources then frantically trying to produce as many resources as possible to send home.
There are limited number of photocopiers in a school - one teacher could not monopolise the machine , it would be unfair on the rest of the school.

Can they butter toast? Put milk on cereal?

If they are old enough read then they're old enough to use a knife.

What did you have for lunch?

There are plenty of age related resources online. Look at them and ask your DC which they can do.

And FFS stop whining.

There's lots online, set your own work, your kids.

Ok, how old are they ?
It might help you have some focus if you have a look at previous learning on the school newsletters.
At least then you know what spag knowledge to apply in literacy and it will help find you find some maths worksheets too.

Making a meal actually includes skills - reading through recipe books , choosing the ingredients, measuring them out, calculating cooking times to coincide with meal times, adjusting recipe for 2, 4 , 6 people et

Yes, but I can't let them choose under the circumstances. Everything has been shared out and planned.

We had soup for lunch.

Multiple people have asked you how old your daughter is, if you tell us what year group she’s in then one of us might be able to help you.

It’s it’s English or Maths then it’s not too difficult though. Print something that you think looks about right (presumably you do her homework with her, so you know roughly what level she’s working at) and see how she finds it.

Oh god, I can just imagine how many show offs there are who want to show the teacher just how lovely their children's meals are. It's like turning the classroom into Instagram.

To be fair to the teachers they have had to throw lessons together really quickly. How old are your children?

Teach them how to safely open the can. Or safely use the microwave. Or safely use a hob?

They don't need to choose!

Y1 and Y3. I looked on Twinkl but I felt so overwhelmed. There was so much stuff.

Op I get youive seen twonkl and the like and there's SO MUCH TO CHOOSE FROM!!

And we don't have a printer.

But you say sending them into the garden to explore is beyond you, so I'm guessing this is actually about you being overwhelmed, stressed l, anxious rather than the kids school works.

How old are they? Perhaps we can help suggest seething specific academically?

Do you want to talk about the rest of it?

Op, heating up some soup and buttering some bread is absolutely fine. We are in a really different difficult time, things don’t have to be perfect.