How much homework do you do with your Y3 child?

[UndertheCedartree]

I've been in hospital and not able to support my 7 yr old DD (Y3) with homework as much as I would like. She is making good progress at school and very happy and settled but is a bit behind with spelling and handwiting as far as I can tell.

I'm hoping to be discharged soon and am working on routines for when I'm home and would like to include some time to support DD with her learning. The homework policy at school is that every 2 weeks they get some homework tasks but they are non-compulsory so I can be pretty flexible. I was thinking of aiming to do a Bug Club book, My Maths task, Times tables rockstars (all online programmes set as tasks on homework sheet), a workbook page for handwriting, learning Yr3 spelling list and then any extra tasks she'd like to do from the homework sheet. With reading at this age do parents still hear them read then write in the reading record or do children usually read to themselves and write in reading record themselves? Does this sound ok or too much? Or not enough? Interested in opinions.

I don't do any with them, especially at that age.
It's their homework and if they can't do it then the teacher has given unrealistic work.
I do still listen to them read.
Your other stuff sounds way OTT

None of them, spending time talking to them, doing things with them is much more productive than school type work, increasing vocabulary, general knowledge etc. is much more useful than more school work.

@vikkimoog - I didn't say she couldn't do it. There are a variety of tasks to choose from so I was wondering which to choose to help her in general and in particular to help with spelling and handwiting.

Mine get spellings once a week and we’re supposed to encourage reading. I don’t do anything extra as I don’t think they should be doing anything else. When we get home they play.

@sirfredfredgeorge - 'let's talk' is actually one of the homework tasks. It gives details of their topic so a parent can talk with them about it. There are always tasks about making models of things which I know DD is keen to do but they stress me out!

I think reading is the most important so we do plenty of that. We try to do the school homework, even though it’s not compulsory.
She goes to a free coding club in the library. We were in the library once while it was going on and she asked to go.
Apart from that, we don’t do much else. It’s just more general things like museums, non fiction books, some documentaries.
If your dd is happy doing all that then carry on.

Maybe I'm worrying about this too much. I do worry about the effect me being in hospital has on the DC. I assumed that most people did some of the homework tasks but maybe I'm wrong. I just want the best for my DC. She will always have lots of time for playing and other activities.

Just to be clear the list I wrote was for the fortnightly homework period not everyday.

DS is in Year 3 at a prep school and gets quite a lot of homework IMO.
He reads nearly every day and I sign the reading record. He’s on ORT level 11 but at home he’s reading Percy Jackson independently.
He has English x 2, maths x2 and topic x1 plus spellings and times tables. He needs supervision doing it but can do it independently IYSWIM.

My eldest is 7 in y3. I do reading with him (he reads to me for 5-10 minutes a day then reads to himself for longer). He practises his spellings (mainly for handwriting practise) which takes 5 minutes a day. I supervise his homework (one piece a week it takes about half an hour). My son is super into maths and puzzles so we do things like that together but just for fun when he initiates it. I should do more to help with his handwriting because it's so messy and he's lazy about it but need to think of a way of enticing him to do it.

PS hope you recover soon op!

@bickles - yes I understand - my DD can do the work but might need some help getting set up/supervising. That does sound like a lot of homework. They don't seem to do reading levels anymore. DD has a quite long chapter book chosen from the library which I suspect is a bit difficult for her but she likes reading it anyway. I tend to get her to read to me a bit easier books that I have bought her.

My yr3 ds has spellings, rock stars timetables, my maths activity and a pick from a homework menu which is around their themes in class - creative writing, researching facts, design work etc

We sit with him but he does it himself

@FullOfJellyBeans - thank you!

They don’t have mandatory reading but he’s into beast quest and reads those freely

Everyday we do
Times tables rock stars
Mathletics
Reading school book and also for pleasure

We do a few times a week
Random math stuff based on what we are doing- cooking weighing and measuring
Working out times and time slots around our diary and activities
Music practice
Spellings
Vocabulary building with words of the day.....but not every day!

We talk so much in our house. We are all extremely verbose!

My DS gets spellings and we practise times tables when I remember. He reads loads but I don't tend to listen to him. He reads to his younger brother so I guess someone listens to him! No reading record to complete though.

Mine doesn’t get any homework, only reading but he is a free reader anyway. I still listen to him read and then I ask him about it after so I know he’s not just reading the words but also understands the story too.

@Figgygal - yes, that sounds similar to my DDs homework tasks.

My DD gets too much homework in my opinion - although thankfully not in holidays. She is ok at reading but is a reluctant reader and won’t pick up a book to read independently unless prompted to ( and would always choose to do puzzles / word searches etc over reading). She is supposed to read to us every day and do spellings and times tables everyday. Once a week she completes one piece of work which she chooses from a total of 10 tasks ( one or two are compulsory but otherwise they can pick and choose). The tasks are variable and there is often an easy, medium or difficult option. I find the wording of the questions difficult and jargon laden and some of the tasks generally quite difficult for a 7 year old to do independently ( or mine anyway). Eg to research the life of a musician online and write a biography. The whole thing is absolutely fraught and often ends up with DD in tears.... I hate it. It takes hours but the school will say 30 minutes max. She once forgot to take her homework in and had to stay in the following lunchtime for extra homework time. She scores as “ excellent” in all her reports so this is not about her having additional needs. You really see what Ken Robinson was getting at in his TED talk “ Why Schools kill Creativity”.

At this age we used to do reading every day but my daughter loves reading anyway. We used to do spellings each night and x tables on the way to school.
They got one written piece of homework each week either maths or English. It was usually stuff they'd already studies at school and took about 20 minutes (at the most). Never did anything extra though.
If your daughter is happy to do the extra then go for it but I wouldn't force it if not.

My ds is a bit older (year 6) and still needs supervision and sometimes support with his homework. I’m ok with that, my parents were never interested and certainly never helped me - and I struggled as a result. OP your dd is lucky to have such a supportive parent.

My DS does mathletics and tt rockstars off his own back most days. Either me or DH listen to him read most days too, but usually only for 5-10 mins and then he just reads to himself. English homework he sometimes needs a nudge to do it but I only assist if he’s really stuck.

Who's taking care of your DD while you're in hospital and why aren't they doing homework with her? Hope you feel better soon, but this would not be top of my to-do list in the circs.

Honestly OP if you could get her to read to you and then ask her questions about what she has read, that would be great. You could also ask her why a character did a certain thing, can she predict what might happen next etc.

Also Times Tables practice - they are all supposed to know their Times Tables by the end of Yr4.

Anything else is a bonus!