Why do some nursery staff insist on overhelping children with their craft?

[Soubriquet]

3 year old dd broke up from nursery yesterday and came away with a little Christmas bag full of the Christmas activities that they did

It is 100% obvious it isn't her work

It looks like they've applied the glue for her to stick or things like that

Even her name where they have to trace the dots looks like someone has helped her.

I know that because at home, when she tries, she can't do it.

I would rather have messy wonky looking crafts that are done by her, then decent looking things that have had a lot of intervention.

I thought this was frowned upon now in pre-schools and nurseries?

I think they need a mixture of 'guided' craft and independent craft. However ... if they are doing guided craft and have an idea of their own, then they should be allowed to express themselves. For example, I was helping a little girl with making a ladybird, when she decided it was a spider and needed lots of eyes and legs.

I've worked with children for many years and nursery is not supposed to help they can guide and offer things to stick but shouldn't be doing it. I use to do my own so the children could see what was expected of them then i sat next to them and talked about the activities they were doing. The whole point is to get messy and explore and unfortunately it is the staffs job to clean up that's what parents pay for. I can understand going over the dots on one letter to show them how to do it but then leave the rest up to them. I let my one year old paint she's made xmas decs doesn't look like what i wanted but it was all her own work.

This gets me so angry. My daughter is almost 5 and can do things herself.....in fact she makes me a lot of lovely (crap) models and pictures of her own making. So it totally pisses me off when one assistant/helper makes things for her..like literally a picture he drew with my daughters name on. Or a junk model/origami crap WITH her name on!! I have enough without his crap cluttering up the house!! Though of course with a real fire at home I always have something to light it with!

I work in Early Years and here is my take on things from working in a busy toddler room.

For young children, crafts are more of a sensory activity than achieving an end product. When children get to age 3-4 they begin to realise that they can actually follow steps to make their work look a certain way, such as with Christmas cards.

Wherever possible, practitioners should allow children to express themselves in their own way and give them the freedom to create their own work.

I'm sure pictures sent home or collected in your dcs file will reflect this type of experience.

However, practitioners are under pressure at times of celebrations to create artwork en-masse. Therefore they will try to come up with an idea that can be reproduced in a simple manor. It then becomes a conveyor belt exercise to make sure each child has made a card, calendar, decoration etc. The children are on a timescale to produce their work so the next child can have a go. We are also aware that most parents like to keep these cards so we like to send home something more than basic mart making.

For example, we made snowmen out of footprints.
Child's foot was painted and printed on paper
Staff helped child put pre-cut eyes, nose, mouth etc onto footprint by talking about where they should go and giving some guidance.
Staff cut out footprints and put them on cards.

Obviously this isn't ideal, however it also isn't something we use to observe and record a child's development.

But on a normal day, children would be able to paint their own feet and walk on paper to make their own footprints, they would be allowed to stay at the activity as long as they wanted and make their own ideas.

As long as all your dcs art work isn't so heavily manipulated I wouldn't worry too much.

I'm private daycare 0-4 and we don't do their craft we give them instructions like can you put the star on top of the tree? We point to the top and the child sticks the star where they think the top is. The nursery worker has done the bag for sure a 3 year old wouldn't have it so neat the eyes would be slightly wonky.

At playgroup we were making calendars and all the children were supposed to do their handprints. I prefer my little girl to do her things how she wants etc she did not want to do the handprints instead she chose to do a lot of painting which was of no obvious shape as she's 3 lol. But I prefer to let her choose her own way I think it's brilliant

nokids I'm not pathetic, 'making marks' is the phrase used in the EYFS, and it is how I am used to describing a child's creation, whatever it may be.

Don't worry Jean. My children make marks too. Whether it's in mud, on paper, on a wall, in play dough, or wherever, they're still making marks.