why the f do they set "make a model" homework when they know it's the parents that end up having to do it!? grrrrr!!!

[RedOnHerHedd]

Just that really!!!
Make a model of a

Why????
Just why???

They know the kids version will be a pile of crap, and they know that that one kids parent spends a grand on hobbycraft items and makes a scale version of the Taj Mahal.

And your kid's attempt is 2 yogurt pots and a butter carton glued to a box of coco pops.

Why don't they just tell your kids "ok, so your parents homework this weekend is to make a working model of the international space station, complete with the ability to self orbit around the globe".

Guess what I'll be doing tonight!?
Making a fucking model.
Yet again.

Its not as if anyone in real life will ever make a model for their jobs, its not as if any professional will ever have to make a cardboard prototype, or be able to put together a model net for clothing.

By mid primary school children will have worked out their design preferences. If Johnny like making models then point him in the direction of the empty boxes and if Jill likes creating a graphic and printing it out then direct her to the computer. If schools want to engender creativity then they should be creative in their tasks setting. Give them a choice - how easy is that.

We had to make Stone Age villages this half term. It was a fraught experience and some of the things kids were turning up with were frankly ridiculous. There's no way a kid could have made them. Their parents seemed to think it was a competition.

Don't agree with that at all I'm afraid- 'by mid primary'?? Unfortunately, the tacit knowledge of making real life things is being lost as children are all to likely to choose a 'screen'. You might kid yourself that this is as valid choice as the other but the fundamentals have to be in place first and they don't involve 'screens'!

I think the thing that makes these more exclusive is that they're visual. Everyone can see at a glance who's homework is 'amazing' and who's isn't. The kids are delightfully awed by good homeworks and all crowd round gushing about how amazing it is. Unfortunately their definition of 'good' is usually big, bright, unusual, makes a noise, moves etc. The usual stuff that excites children. Learning objectives are forgotten if it looks cool!

What's really irritating, as a teacher, is when the children get freer choice about how they present something and some parents/kids have to be the one who bring in an enormous mural - obviously drawn by an adult and simply filled in by the child. Gets loads of attention, simply because it is so huge and bright and parent and child stand around beaming waiting for me to heap on the praise as well. When I simply praise the 'lovely colouring and interesting idea' and move on the child is baffled and the parent annoyed but I refuse to gush over a homework that wasn't done by the child and doesn't actually show any learning.

I hate model homeworks because of how competitive they get. Writing, maths, investigation, presentation homework is never like this.

There should be a market for these....

Like e-bay, but more local, and specifically for models.

I have on offer: A miniature rainforest in a box, a periscope, a castle and a pyramid

Or cheap mass produced ones made in China.

I think this has already happened to costumes for school plays and special school days. Why not for models?!

Lots of people design and build things for a living Boney. And cardboard is probably a more realistic medium to start in, rather than requiring models to be spun out of industrial polymers, welded together in stainless steel or constructed in AUTOCAD

Right Jizzy, so let's extrapolate that. Kids, no reading at home because not everyone has access to books. No football for you Lily, cause John doesn't get opportunity to play. In school or not at all. Really?

I'm afraid I shan't be held responsible for whatever bizarre extrapolations, stemming from flawed analogies, that you or anyone else wishes to draw. That's on you.

What you and particularly goldensquirrel seem to be missing is this: if something is important enough to a child's education, which I think most of us feel model making is, it should be done IN SCHOOL. Not shunted off to homework, which is what sometimes happens with model making and what's been touched on during this thread. This is because not covering important, required things in school, where everyone has access to the same resources, means that some children then don't get to do them. The appropriate analogy, if you wish to make one, would be with not doing reading or PE at all in school, ever, and simply transferring the responsibility to parents. I suppose I can't make you give a shit about this, but one would hope you could at least acknowledge how problematic it would be?

Although on the subject of doing things at home, yes this is one reason why homework for primary school children should be kept to a minimum. Along with the paucity of evidence that it has any benefits.

BarbarianMum

I know, hence the winking emote.

SirChenjin

The problem with offering a free range of modelling options is that sometimes the whole piece of homework doesn't get read.
Or the file type that the work get handed in in is completely incompatible with what the teacher has, I am not talking about the difference between open and microsoft office, Parents with CAD packages will hand in work from CATIA, Solidworks, Prodesktop etc. that teachers do not have the facilities to open.

Well....
Ladies and gentlemen...
Drum roll please...

We have a gas mask box!

DS now wants to make the gas mask to go inside!

DS is 4. Homework for half term was to design and make a maths themed game. Impossible to do without a fair chunk of parental input and hardly something that can be flung together in 30 minutes.

I'm not sure why the school feels that they have to account for my son's time out of school. It's half term. Can't we just kick back and do our own thing?

I'm a teacher and I send this out.

And another point. I remember a child who was desperate to do the same projects as his peers. Unfortunately his parents weren't supportive, so he did a sketchy drawing on a tatty piece of paper. Bearing in mind the project was broad -a definite subject, but the medium used was down to the parent child to choose. And all the work was on display in each classroom for all the school to view.

Obviously, as soon as the teacher realised, they had a gentle chat and suggested some time for the child to do some additional 'work' on it and gave all the materials and some help needed for the desired result.

Brilliant that he wanted to do it, but heartbreaking when comparing to kids with parents who did do all the work give a damn.

How many children are discouraged from even trying because of this?

I hate projects.

Wellthen, the thing is writing, maths etc aren't the same and far to limiting a curriculum at primary age. It's quite depressing to hear your complete disinterest in the subject.

He's just stuck the printout we found online too

Too not 'to'

Looks excellent!

BoneyBack - which is why I said "printing out". I'm well aware of compatibility problems.

The short printed-out piece of writing can be displayed alongside the model of whatever, the drawing, the print out and so on. My goodness, for all the calls for creativity on here it seems that the ones who are making the most noise are the ones who are most rigid and inflexible around what makes for a creative approach.

If making a model is so important then it's up to the school to schedule it into their lesson planning alongside the other elements of the curriculum.

You have a lot of faith in the education system??

Is that a rhetorical question?

Way back in primary school days, DD had to do a summer project on WW2. This was at the end of Y4. One child in the class returned with a house model (made by granddad) with full blackout curtains (made by granny). DD dressed up one of her Barbies as a land girl, and wrote a little explanation of the clothes she had chosen and what the land girls did. One of them won the coveted chocolate bar. Possibly Barbie did not convince as a land girl

Oh god, I'm dreading this shit. I'm crap at this stuff, always was even way back as a child and I hated it because I knew I was shit at it. The thought of having to go through it all again as an adult is just ugh, can't bear the thought. She's only 2.5 at the moment and I've already got to do a world book day costume. I'm just not cut out for this aspect of parenting. I'm not creative and I fucking hate anything to do with sewing, sticking or arts and crafting. It's just another thing to feel inferior about.

Couple of things to bear in mind Pickled

1. Ebay is your friend for all things sewing related. Buy an outfit whenever possible. Life is too short to spend it sewing ruffs.

1. Get her to make as much of the pointless modelling as possible. Do not enter into any competitive model making with other parents. Take the hands off approach at all times.

1. By doing the above you are not stifling their creativity/showing yourself as unimaginative/being a shit parent.

Pickled luckily crap homemade costumes trump hasty Amazon Prime specials even if homework doesn't.
DS went in a brown fur throw dog blanket covered with wooden pegs sticking up. Voila -hedgehog. That was for a mini beasts dress up but would work for Mrs Tiggy Winkle.

This was a project DS did when he was in Yr5. They were told to make a game about the book they were reading. He went a little above and beyond - and I had nothing to do with it.

However, there is absolutely no value in parents doing homework. You are do your children no favours.