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?!

Life skills are really important and lessons in themselves. Progress is not just measured by academics.

If you want maths Mathletics is really good and follows curriculum, you can trial it for free.

The 5 senses thing is academic for younger children - it's to aid (very early and v basic!) development of scientific / conceptual thinking. It might seem crap and random but it actually supports their cognitive development.

FFS
Look on google if you need “real work”
Those activities have a lot of educational merit.
Stop being so precious.

Are teachers really going to be subjected to weeks and weeks of these posts from parents having a good whinge? Far too many this evening already.
Just lay off. Teachers really do get bashed in literally any situation

OP if you're still reading this - get them onto youtube at 9am for the PE with Joe Wickes thing (even the teachers and remaining kids in school are doing this at my kids' school)... Oti from Strictly is doing an online dance class at 11.30am. Take photos of them doing those and let them put them onto the app for what they've been doing.

Get them to paint some rainbows to stick in the windows - again - can photograph those for the class competitive parenting feed if needs be.

Code.org has a really nice set of coding activities for that age - my Y3 child whizzed through it, my Y2 needed a bit more support but she's away with the fairies anyway.

If you're looking on Twinkl - anything that is geared toward revision, mental maths facts, multiplication facts (for the older one) and basic addition and subtraction for the younger one - and you won't go wrong... there are ones on there to colour in the answers set colours which have kept mine going the last couple of days.

We're doing a reading journal where they draw a picture or write some thoughts and pictures about what they've read - thanks to the teacher who sent home the book on the Black Death plague though - good timing there! (It made us all giggle)

Just email the teacher - I have had a few emails which I've happily responded to and I know my class are doing everything from maths to building dens in the garden. But first of all, take a few days to breathe! The children have had a pretty stressful time.

If you really want something you can print off/do look at Classroom Secrets. They have home learning packs and answers!

classroomsecrets.co.uk/free-home-learning-packs/

Not saying you should be doing this but there will be plenty off stuff for your chidren. Or they can do lego, play board games...

And get them to do PE with Joe Wicks on You Tube. But mainly don't feel guilty whatever they do and try not to stress about it.

gorgeous cakes shop bought or burnt and sunken underneath the icing
children chopping up veg child stands by chopped veg with knife in hand. child then refuses to eat veg and screams house down.

You should be thankful that the teachers are doing this and stop moaning. Can you do a better job? Then apply for teacher training and show them how it is done.

Jesus! Teachers had 2 days. Get over yourself. We have set similar task suggestions on top of daily reading, times table practising and links to websites like bbc bite size etc.

Whatever you eat is a meal.
Get the dc to prepare even if it s pouring crisps onto a plate
If no gardenyou can explore on your daily walk
They just ideas

I fear for some children when their parents can’t think of how to educate their own children. Making a meal involves reading, measuring and weighing, timing etc. A massive lesson. Get them to review it afterwards and take photos. Put it all in a diary. Not difficult.

Year one and year three?! They don’t need academic stuff. Read with them, play shop with them for maths skills, work out the area of different rooms in the house, practice writing stories. Don’t fret over it.

I'm guessing it's because a lot of parents are working at home as well they don't want to set masses that will stress people with loads of set work. There's tonnes of free resources at the moment, or just think of some.

At least your school are sending you stuff. My children are at secondary school and we received one thing so far.

That garden task, I have seen similar before, could be a preliminary task to what is coming - creative writing for example.

Chances are, these are more simple tasks to keep going while the teachers get sorted to send out more work. At my school, the teachers sent home a quickly put together pile of worksheets and tasks such as what you’ve mentioned to occupy the first couple of days. They have been working flat out to create an online curriculum - I’ve helped other staff make demonstration videos, power points to send out, all sorts. I’m sure more academic work is coming.

Well if we set academic tasks parents complain kids have so much work to do and how dare we, they are overwhelmed it's stressful, we can;t expect kids to do all that. Maybe it's nice for them to do something different, take photos of it, make a journal?

If every primary child read daily, wrote a book review, a diary, learnt their times tables off by heart schools would be so grateful.

If you think that education is simply filling out worksheets and reading books then you're children are missing out on a huge amount.

Children actually learn more by 'doing', this has been proven time and time again, but yet here you are complaining...

We have home ed our 6 children for years and we don’t do any formal learning until age 7 - 8 so my 8 year old is just learning to read now. It hasn’t harmed her older brother and sisters (the eldest is 15 and about to sit GCSEs). Seriously just relax and enjoy the time you have with them. Even if you do NOTHING for 6 months the long term effect on your children will be 0.

We are enjoying mysteryscience.com which is free atm! If you wanted something fun do to!

Also in terms of cooking my kids love making bread even the 4 year old joins in.

Watch a couple of documentaries on Netflix/YouTube. Read a few pages of a book. Job done.

make a pizza using scone base or cheat & do bread or roll
(fyi I did scone based pizza & pancakes & cake mixes with 4 dc childminding so get a grip girl!) make a sandwich as in a back garden picnic ie boiled egg
Look up on web about food rationing in ww2 & talk to dc about the restrictions than & now - get a bit of history going bbc is probably a good resource
cooking is about literacy, measuring & maths, & social development physical (fine motor skills)
(back in time with the corner shop on bbc 2?)
garden & 5 senses - what colours can they see can they hear bird song or traffic in the background or someone's lawn mower etc what can the smell (good & bad!) smell of cut grass? texture leaves tree trunks flowers leaves … make a nature table like they did in the old days collect stones seeds leaves etc

Did anyone bother to read that the OP is in week 2 of isolation , not social distancing , isolation and has obviously been doing it properly because she is down to just freezer stuff . On top of that she has by the sounds of it a 7 and 5 year old .

If she has been isolating presumably one or all of them have been ill either with C19 or suspected . I think we should take our hat off to her and and don’t blame her for just wanting something easy from school, I should think she is shattered

the eldest is 15 and about to sit GCSE

Erm, I hate to be the one to point it out but, no, they're not.

[dafodil]

Horrible Histories.........................................