AIBU that making craft shit for school at home is pointless?

[purplepencilcase]

Can someone explain why spending almost a whole day on making a Viking Longboat for Year 3 homework is a good use of time?

I honestly can't believe it's enhancing education in ways that other activities couldn't do?

I recall that our neighbours - whose kids have been inseparable since reception - opted to do a Yr9 science project together. I can still picture the giant relief model of the planets being manipulated into the back of an estate car by 2 mums and 2 kids. They must have had to bring it home too as it ended up in a skip when their neighbours were having a kitchen extension built the following year.

My son escaped having to do a science project because of Lockdown

I’m of the opinion that child needs to do their craft homework - and I will assist if they need help. But they need to come up with their own ideas.
my friend believes that as other parents make it, if her children ask her she will make it so they can be proud at school.
for winning prizes, it’s always the child made ones that win, not the elaborate parent models.
also, some of the parents in DC2s reception class are realising now that neither their children, nor they, like the 7 hour input their model requires, and that they don’t get any brownie points for it either

Helping them by listening to their ideas fine. Holding something in place while it sets - fine. Actually doing the crafting and sticking it all together coz the kid got bored, not fine.

I agree with this assessment. It needs to be child led. If they go off bored and do something else then that's it - half finished homework gets handed in

I think a big thing here is people talking about children "winning prizes" with crafts projects clearly made by an adult. That never happened at my daughters school. There were no prizes for a craft based homework.
It was just (actually not even compulsory) homework.
Why are children getting prizes for homework?

@nahwhale as in, we have to set homework to work alongside what they are learning here.

Get your child to draw one and colour it in instead.

^ because all the cornflake/egg boxes and yoghurt pots went into the recycling

YANBU. I had 2 DS and tried to do all the stuff with them because honestly the assignments set were well beyond what they could do and they always needed craft stuff to do it. They are early twenties now and I wish I'd told the school a big fat no!

Funny story - Once DS forgot he had to do make a calendar for advent until the night before when he was in bed (he was like 9 or something). I told him not to worry and I'd quickly cobble something together which he could take in. I did it - and he duly took it in and said "mum helped him". Then at the carol service the vicar came over to say well done because it had a lovely christian message. I am as atheist as they come, but googled some Xmas bible verses to put in t

Just don't do them, we never have.

YANBU. I never got involved.

I spent 19 years as a designer and 25 years as a DT teacher up to A level.

This is not teaching a y3 design skills. The project to build a Viking long boat is way too difficult for y3. They need to know basic construction skills or the standard of attainment will be shite. And then they get upset because it’s not how they wanted it.

This used to do my head in about primary school. Giving impossible art/design projects. My dd once got told to make a musical instrument in y3. Cue child bringing in amazing saxophone covered in tin foil obviuosly made by parent.

I used to ask y7 what they’d done at school. ‘Draw Romans’ or ‘Made a Long boat’ were normal answers. When k asked them what skills they learnt they had no idea. ‘Draw Romans’ 🙄How about a bit of shade, tone, form before we try and draw complex people with no reference?’Make a Viking king boat’ How about teaching card construction or basic 3D modelling in paper before making a complex 3D shape with no basic skills

Used to do my head in. Homeworks way above level of age ability.

This. Researching, designing and making are crucial skills for life and for many jobs. The making of mess and the clearing up of that mess are also crucial life skills and the lack of those skills are often moaned about on here.

I doubt a y3 can make a longboat without parental help. So they just get frustrated. It’s ‘teaching’ them nothing.

Yes! It has to be achievable

A 7/8 yo can stick boxes together to make something boatlike and decorate it on their own.

But it wouldn’t look like a Viking long boat. It would look like boxes stuck together. And not the same shape.

So it’s taught them how to stick boxes together. But nothing about shape. And shape is a building block of design. Cardboard boxes aren’t.

Our school stopped this just before my first started, thank god! They saw how pointless it was, parents did most of it, so they just set reading every night as homework.

That's fine though. They learn to add two and two before multiplication, that doesn't mean they're not learning numeracy.

Adding two and two is a building block though. Comes before multiplication.

Teaching construction skills and shape cones before making a king boat.

I would have taught (in school, so they learn the proper skills) a helmet using papier-mâché, with instruction on how to make the horns correctly, a headband, or a shield with relief pattern All doable. My A level classes would have struggled with a longboat.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow you must have had an interest in crafty stuff at some point as a child if you went down the designer and then DT teacher path. I can't imagine you just woke up at gcse age and said "I want to be a designer".
How are children meant to develop an interest in something if they don't first experience it at primary school.
A Year 3 teacher will be expecting something vaguely looking like a boat made out of cardboard - not a fully functioning model.

I wouldn’t expect a fully functioning model. It’s about making it accessible. A longboat is a really difficult shape. Above the level of a y3. So they are never going to be able to do it.

Would a child be given a sheet of random number and letters and be told to make a complex formulae?

Design and art have building blocks and steps just like any other subject. But teachers say ‘just make’. This is why British design graduates all go abroad, and why engineers are highly paid. Because it’s easy innit? Just stick bits together, anyone can do it.

I facilitate homework, I don't do it.

Teacher/student gets as much as they put into it.

Having said that, I quite enjoy a viking long-boat :) so in this case my kids would probably be beating me away so they could do it themselves :D

Engineers aren’t highly paid!

Depends what you engineer