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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not want to spend time at weekend doing this sodding homework?

158 replies

eleflump · 29/11/2015 18:36

I know I probably am BU...

DS is in Year 7, and has to do a project on castles. He has to do research on various types of castle - do labelled drawings, write about them, all ok.

Except the last task - to make a model of a concentric castle. Which needs to take at least two hours.

I work full-time, DH works full-time, and next weekend I am also working Sunday, which leaves me Saturday to do everything I need to do. And Christmas is coming.

I was crap at art projects at school, thirty-odd years later, it hasn't got much better. DS is crap at art projects and won't have a clue without me trying to help him.

I am going to need to go and buy all the stuff to make the bloody model...which will take up more time.

I thought I had left all this behind at primary school!!!!

Oh - another thought...how the bloody hell is he going to get it to school on the bus?????

Why don't they do this stuff at school where they have the time, the resources, and (presumably) people who know how to do it?!!!

OP posts:
Dixiechickonhols · 30/11/2015 16:07

Who has plastercine or pva on hand though with only an older child. Yes when dd was 3 or 5 but not now.

thebestfurchinchilla · 30/11/2015 16:15

It's your child's homework. You don't have to do it. You just have to buy the stuff.If no time order online. You should be encouraging your child to do well and take an interest in learning.

SirChenjin · 30/11/2015 16:17

I encourage my children to do well (and they have) and I am extremely interested in their learning. Building a model of X is not required for either.

thebestfurchinchilla · 30/11/2015 16:18

I am answering the OP.

SirChenjin · 30/11/2015 16:22

And I am answering the generic 'you'

user789653241 · 30/11/2015 16:27

kestrel, I don't think Castle building is for "kinaesthetic" learners.
They are just constantly moving/fidgeting while concentrating.
My ds is definitely a kinaesthetic learner, but hate crafty homeworks.
I can't believe they still do those things in YR7!!!???

gandalf456 · 30/11/2015 16:48

Sometimes you have to help them though if they're children who struggle. My DD is one of those. My ds is far different so it's not parenting.

vladthedisorganised · 30/11/2015 17:38

Blu-tac?

I'm just recovering from 5yo DD's homework - write about the beach. Write a list of things you can find on the beach. Write a list of things to take to the beach. Write a story about the last time you went to the beach, remembering to use your time connectives. Count the number of shells on this picture of a beach. Write a poem about going to the beach.

In November, when we live nowhere near the sea [cries].

SirChenjin · 30/11/2015 17:58

At 5 years old??! I'm not surprised you are crying! Still - could have been worse, at least you didn't have to build a bloody model of the beach as well Grin

HicDraconis · 30/11/2015 18:45

DS1 had to build a model of any geographical landmark. He did the great pyramid of Giza & Sphinx in minecraft, then recorded a Stampy-esque video tour of it. He researched it thoroughly, wrote the talk, had to learn how to record a minecraft video with sound (he looked that one up himself too) - it taught him masses, and not just about pyramids. I didn't have to do any of it.

I did bake a lot of square cakes (and made far too much buttercream) for him to turn into a pyramid to take in.

Volcano was easier. He googled for a bit, then wrapped a cone around a 2L bottle of Coke & took a tube of mentos in. He got a certificate for that one 😄

Indantherene · 30/11/2015 19:05

We used to get a term project involving making a model of something. DD is dyspraxic and I have absolutely no talent in crafty stuff. I wouldn't even know where to start.

When I really struggled to help DD with one of them and it wasn't even marked I decided we wouldn't do it again. We haven't, and nothing has happened.

hiddenhome2 · 30/11/2015 19:30

I used to keep mine off on the days the project was going to be handed in. Ditto dressing up days.

I just can't cope with crafty shit and the dcs weren't interested either.

FannyTheChampionOfTheWorld · 30/11/2015 19:44

It penalises children who don't have home lives that facilitate that sort of work. Hanging language learning on having a home environment in which you will be encouraged or tolerated to spend half an hour a week building a model is really unfair. One of the brilliant things about language - and one of the reasons why there is such a fantastic wide range of literature from people of all backgrounds - is that words cost nothing. Slaves have written, people have written in prisons. Why the flying fuck would you tack this material constraint onto the practice of learning language so that they can only access the language through this obfuscatory, irrelevant and unnecessarily material barrier of a built model?

Yeah, this. I can see that some DC would love it, but you're just doing a shit all over the ones who don't have access to the materials and environment needed to pull this off. My family spent a thankfully brief period insecurely housed during my schooling, and I was shunted between various relatives. I could still do my homework fine during this time, since I had pen and paper and worst case scenario could get plenty of it done on the bus. Making a sodding model of a house, castle, cell or anything else would have been completely impossible. As if I didn't already feel different and embarrassed enough. Putting further, completely unnecessary disadvantage on kids who are already suffering is just not on.

Minisoksmakehardwork · 30/11/2015 21:00

dixie for your daughter the low mark is just plain discrimination if they haven't differentiated the work to take into account what your daughter could achieve herself surely?

Why is it subjects like maths are always marked based in the working out as well as the final result, but craft related projects rely solely on the finished article to give a mark? There should be marks given for the initial idea too.

I don't actually mind the crafty projects which come home. Our school does very few though. I've also taken to keeping boxes and packets, especially those with interesting shapes, just in case. when I feel I've got too many, we ship them off to school/preschool for junk modelling and start again.

totalrecall1 · 30/11/2015 21:08

YANBU I am sick of it too. Every bloody weekend we are modelling something or helping with 4 lots of homework.

SirChenjin · 30/11/2015 21:10

And whether the finished article is solely the work of the pupil or not is very hard to prove...so effectively you're allocating a mark to something which may, or may not, be the result of cheating

itsmeohlord · 30/11/2015 21:19

hmmm Craft homework does not need marking like say writing a nice long essay on castles...... or a load of quadratic equations....

Which subject is this - history or art and craft?

At senior school, mine were on their own with their homework.

But homework does have the ability to destroy family time and cause arguments

SettlinginNicely · 30/11/2015 21:52

Well put lockthetaskbar.

theycallmemellojello · 30/11/2015 22:00

Why on earth would you do an 11 year old's homework? I'm genuinely not getting it. Send him out to get some Sellotape from the newsagent if you don't have any, then leave him to it with cereal boxes or whatever you have. No need to be a martyr.

5Foot5 · 30/11/2015 22:46

I remember some of these type of projects at that age.

In Y7 DD had to make a siege engine. She did do it herself with some helpful suggestions from me. It took her hours over one half term holiday and was a combination of cardboard, papier mache and gaffer tape and she was very proud of it.

Bloody thing never got marked. The teacher just left them on a shelf and forgot about them.

Then there was a Masai hut for geography.She decided to use some of the guinea pig's hay for the roof and it ended up all over the kitchen floor.

I suppose making a gargoyle for art homework was fair enough.I thought her effort using a plantpot, balloon, papier mache and even more gaffer tape was bloody good, but apparently full marks went to one boy who left it to the night before and then painted one of his old toy dinosaurs and the teacher didn't even realise!

TheSecondOfHerName · 30/11/2015 22:54

Why on earth would you do an 11 year old's homework? Because she has delayed motor skills, but is creative and artistic and doesn't want her project to look noticeably rubbish next to those of her friends. She created the design and planned what materials to use, but doesn't have the coordination to use a craft knife, spray paint or needle and thread.

theycallmemellojello · 30/11/2015 22:56

Speaking as someone who did have delayed motor skills as a child, I don't think that having your work look shit next to your friends' is necessarily a good reason for the parents to step in. Not everyone can be the best.

fallenangel14 · 30/11/2015 23:07

I do find that this sort of thing encroaches on family time. In the same way as when all the girls in year 3 were sent home with a red pillowcase and a note informing mothers parents to make it into a 1920s flapper dress for the school concert. Oh my! How we laughed!

TwoAndTwoEqualsChaos · 01/12/2015 00:55

I have conscientious children. I am not sure what has been worse: the projects which disrupted holidays (like the booklet on a mini-beast, the display project on any king or queen or a Tudor house model, the Artic and Antarctic over Christmas) which are never marked or the projects which were judged as a competiton, leaving all but two of the class very disheartened (the Forbidden City and the Amazonian climate). The latter made me especially angry, as no account was taken of the work that had gone into it. Also, although my children do them themselves, one of us sits with them to encourage/answer questions/sources materials/drives them to the library ...

FannyTheChampionOfTheWorld · 01/12/2015 08:56

What did you do fallenangel? That takes the piss!