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?

Viking Longboat? Meh ... you got off lightly. All the parents mothers in dd's school were sent a red pillowcase and told to transform these into a flapper dress for the end of year show 🥴

I also stopped with dc3. I was working full time and frankly by the time we has done her speech therapy and waded through spellings she could never remember and Biff, Chip and sodding Kipper I was done.
School solved this by inviting her to join homework club where sixth formers came along once a week and helped her with the project.
Win win.

My middle one loves taking big machinery apart and putting it back together and fixing it. She wants to be an engineer. She has no interested in building a Viking boat or house to be burned singing londons burning.

Based on half the stuff that gets taken into our school, the little darling stayed staring at the iPad anyway while mum and dad slaved over.the craft homework.

Plus it's a stupid comment anyway as it's not a binary choice between craft homework or screens. Mine are rarely on screens anyway,.they have hobbies, play with Lego, do watersports with us, do their own crafts (not set by teachers)...

The reality is the curriculum is too full to allow for much art at school, for some children they love it & it might be the only way to engage them. It can trigger good conversations with kids where you find out what they are doing in class too. My rules are:

Mummy is not going to design or make it.

We use it as a starting point for going and reading up a bit more "oh! Vikings! Lets go read about how the vikings used sea travel to extend their empire."

Ooh lets read more about their boats - it says they were often made from x wood which is abundant in Scandinavia! That's interesting.

Not all children are that lucky though are they?

My DH loves doing this stuff with DD he's made things over the years, he's an Architect and enjoys model making and went to art college so is good at design in general, DD is totally following in his footsteps and it is real bonding time for them both as they are on the same wave length with this type of stuff so not a waste of time at all IME.

I think take it how you want to. If you want to use it as an opportunity to make something with your child then great, if not raid the recycling bin and let them get on with it.

What if you’d been away at half term?

I don’t mind these projects if they really are doable in an hour or less. If, however, it’s seven hours where both child and parent cry, child stresses out that it “won’t be good enough” and then it still isn’t all that good then it’s a fairly annoying homework.

I think the risk is that the teacher thinks this is a “fun” homework. Sometimes it’s helpful to say that you both cried four times, it took several hours and <this> is the finished result.

The dress from a pillowcase is great!

Cut armholes and neckline. Tie a sash round the hips and make a headband.

They remember it though, they really do. Mine are all adults now but they remember making a castle in Year 7 (and not many of the worksheets they were given as homework that year). They're grown up soon enough, enjoy the odd enforced craft activity in the knowledge that you will both remember doing it. And teachers don't care about the standard - some parents virtually do the whole thing, some support, some point them to the recycling and step away. So if you're not up to it, leave them to it and nobody will care.

My DS (Y5) had art homework this half term. It was to design his own building inspired by the architect Hundertwasser (? Me neither lol!). I like a good doodle session, and he has ADHD so we often use a strategy called “pairing” whereby you sit alongside him doing the same or similar activity (not doing his for him) and it helps him stay focused for longer. So we each sat together and each produced our own Hundertwasser-inspired building design whilst chatting about Star Wars and mountain bikes. I’m tempted to send mine in for marking too lol 😂

I like this reply.

I love this. I hope to be this mum.