To have judged about half of my daughters class

[fernie3]

Or their parents that is. They are 6 and they came home with a letter saying could we cut the labels off foods so that the children wouod make a map of where the food they eat came from....with the implication being that they needed to bring a little bunch each as they were going to have their own maps.

So i spent a week peeling labels off things which looked interesting for her to take, she came home that day and she had only had one label to stick on her map because the teacher had had to share her labels out to people that didn't bring any - so that means at least 10 children hadn't brought any at all.

Now I know it's stupid and petty and maybe i just have label rage from spending so long trying to peel labels off jars without ripping them or making the writing hard to read but it's not that hard is it just cut out a label or two and drop it in the book bag...

The teacher couldn't have done the original plan without the labels and the children get the message that it's optional to do these things.

AIBU to feel a bit judgey?

strange? pragmatic

"Ffs take can or jar and peel off label.How hard is that?"

You do lack imagination. I imagine it just doesn't hit the radar if one or both parents is stressed, depressed or otherwise compromised by things life can throw at you from time to time.

I also think the teacher was a bit naive not to have brought in a huge pile of labels herself as this is the sort of thing parents always forget about (I have done it myself many a time I am afraid to say ).

Or perhaps the other DCs forgot to tell their parents?

Cut the labels off and take them in? My 6 year old had almost the same homework the other weekend but he had to make a picture out of the packaging at home and then take it in. He used the labels from fruit and veg bags (disclaimer: I usually buy loose friut and veg but he had this idea so I bought pre-packed ones) and made a picture of a tractor, which I thought was quite well thought out for a 6 year old, connecting fruit and veg to farms. However most of the class' parents seem to have done the pictures for them as there were some amazing works of art brought in on the Monday morning

It would have been better if they'd been asked to take the labels/wrappers in and do it in class as at least then it would have been their own work!

DS had this homework recently. We collected labels over the week and then he did his own map in his homework book. The labels never left home. Found it fine and he was actually very interested. He particularly enjoyed finding places like Holland and Belgium on the map and realising how small they were compared to France and Spain.

I would guess that many people take labels off things anyway? I'm always taking labels off cans, yoghurt pots, etc, before I wash and recycle them.

Teacher should have created her own stack in advance to palliate, not relied on your DD's. People do forget, and most 6 yos don't have the gumption to remember that sort of thing.

hmc - in addition to your last post - or perhaps just completely ditzy when it comes to these things

Thankfully my DS's are very good at remembering to tell me they've got homework and nagging asking me to help with stuff that needs my input. or in the case of DS1 getting his violin out and practising.

hmc- 10 people or at least 30% of the class cannot have been so stressed/depressed that they clean forgot something very important in their child's life. I suspect they actually just don't care what happens at school as long as they don't have to get too involved with it.

that's a rather sweeping statement duchesse.

How do you know what is going on in the lives on the families in that class. Given the current economic climate I should imagine that there are even more stressed people than usual.

And while I do try to remember these sorts of things I'm afraid (especially at 6yrs old) I'd never class it as one of the "very important things" in my children's lives.

am of the unshakeable conviction that the only reason a 6yo should be peeling labels off jars is for a better view of the shells/stones/earwigs/caterpillars/frogspawn that they have collected

Our school requests that three parents swim with the prep children (ages 5&6). If three parents cannot swim with the kids then swimming is cancelled. In an effort not to disappoint the kids, the parents are pretty proactive in making sure there are enough parent supervisors.

Just wondering what people think of this? Is this a stupid waste of time?

Sorry,maybe I am being a ABitU myself today.If I were the teacher then I would have got together a humungous pile of labels myself and sucked up the fact that some kids wouldn't have brought some in.I think I'm a little fragile re getting kids to do things at home, as I am losing the will to live with my 12yr getting her to do her homework and take it in.As a teacher I feel like I am being judged when my kids don't do their work properly,but that's just my insecurity I suppose!!

Well duchesse - it depends. It doesn't have to be an extra marital affair, foreclosure on mortgage etc to deflect a parent off course

I am usually pretty good at submitting stuff to school for dcs to take with them, but this Monday I had an exam which mattered a great deal to me and if one of my dcs had come home with a request like that this last week - it just wouldn't have happened...(uncharacteristic for me - but there you go)and I wouldn't have felt particularly bad about it, or thought that I was worthy of censure.

No that's great. It would be way, way too expensive to make staff available (though if the money was there I would make it happen). That's the sort of thing where parents need to get motivated. It's essential if swimming is to go ahead, and swimming is essential.

Collecting labels is not essential for a lesson in social geography, which is not essential itself at 6yo.

dexie I am having the same at the moment with gcse coursework. I think his hw recalcitrance has a great deal to do with the lesson learned in Y2-5 which is basically, it doesn't matter if you don't do homework. Good luck.

aw what a shame, sounds like an ace project

BUT the teacher should have been better prepared (could have collected her own for 2 or 3 weeks)

AND sometimes life gets in the way, no matter how fabulous and creative the school project (there are points in my life when the request for this would have made me cry - and I literally couldn't manage it)

OR maybe they are all eschewing supermarkets and buying label free food from the local butchers, greengrocers and farmers markets.

LOL at our school it would be a competition as to who could go and buy the most ridiculously fair trade/organic/poncey product just so as to send in the "best" label for (imaginary) brownie points.

Thank God they do everything via email though, we even get a class parent email list at the start of each year. Makes life very easy.

YABU, you don't know what is happening in those homes, you only know that your DD had lots of labels and was able to share with the other kids.

Cheers Appletrees!So do you agree that if your son and my daughter had learned a little bit earlier,that doing a little bit of homework makes things easier?

YANBU. It is rubbish to say not everyone can be organised. Your child brings a note home you put it on the calendar what they need to take in and when and you check your calendar each day. Not rocket science.

I hate homework which involves parents although I would have done this.Interestingly I think that the coursework issue is partly the result of too much homework in the primary years which involves parent involvement .Children these days grow up thinking that homework is a family responsibility ,something that they are entitled to parental imput for ,then when asked to do coursework independently ar 14 they and their parents continue to see it this way .
It never occurred to me that my parents should be involved in my homework other than in a supervisory capacity and this is one reason why I think homework for under year 5 should be limited to spellings reading and tables

Mrs Woodentop, I think you have a point there about coursework and children thinking homework is a family activity.

I am beginning to think we were far too encouraging and interested in DD's homework at primary.

I'm just as to how she manages in class!

realises it still says July

I am marginally better now at remembering such stuff (And more important stuff) than I used to be -but still pretty hopeless compared to many.

It may be "simple" for some people, but not everyone is that way naturally inclined, and for some of us just making sure we remember to write in a reading record book, or even know when the start/end of term is is a huge undertaking.

DS1 and 2 are diary and calendar obsessed though (They each have their own) - so I'm rather please that my totally disorganised personality HASN'T passed onto them.

There are some unbelievably SMUG parents in this threas, so organised and perfect that they have time to judge the rest of us, looking down their snooty noses and feeling sorry for our poor children.
Well fuck the fuck off and get a fucking life. You don't know shit.

no no! it was having homework too early that put him off, and the fact that between 2-5 there's no sanction -- lesson learned at an impressionable age

all downhill from there

agree mrswoodentop

you alright over there in the corner spitting feathers winter?

i disagree that parents shouldn't be involved with their dcs homework at this age. children learn from example and for tehm to feel their schoolwork is important teh parents need to set the foundations for how taht child approaches their own education.

if my son came home with this excercise and i told him i wasn't doing it because it was silly, what sort of a message is that telling him. "son, your schoolwork isn't on my radar so don't you worry about it, some other child will have done more than their fair share and you can take teh credit."

FWIW, sometiems parental involvement is essential. one of ds's homeswork last week was to discuss autumn and particularly hallowe'en and note any questions he had about either. if i hadn't sat down with him and talked it through he wouldn't have had his work done.