To leave it to nursery?

[leaveittothelemon]

I do want my child to be school ready.

But AIBU to leave all painting, craft, drawing and so on to nursery? or should I really be trying to do this at home?

My answer depends if your child likes them or not! My DS had no interest at all so we barely did any of that at home. Even at nursery, he wasn't bothered.

Agree with the previous poster, if your child isn’t fussed no loss to them. If they adore art it would be nice to do purely as a thing they enjoy!

YANBU to leave the really messy activities to nursery. However, drawing, simple sticking activities, and some painting are minimally messy and can waste hours so you might be cutting off your own nose to spite your face there!

How old is your DC? My DC is 3 and she just gets out her drawing and writing things when she wants to do it. I do phonics with her at home though to get her ready for school.

They can actually be very cute when doing arts and crafts so if your child likes it would be a shame to miss out on sharing the experience together.

Personally I think it’s important children have a small supply of arts and crafts stuff at home so they can do it as an activity if they like it. Can be simple like a few paints and brushes etc

Painting and craft is fine to leave if they attend a substantial amount of nursery I think. But I’d have colouring pencils and crayons freely available, and scissors to practice cutting skills.

Those activities are very beneficial to motor skills, colour recognition, can assist in basic numeracy and sharing time working together on creations. I can't imagine not doing them.

What is putting you off? Chalk, paint, colouring books, recycling art pieces, collages etc are all cheap an little effort

I'm not up for the mess.
Water colouring... fine.
Playdoh in kitchen i will tolerate.
Painting and messy play is a hard no.

How much of the week is your child at nursery? I think it's a bit lame to do nothing at home especially if your child enjoys it.

How many days are they at nursery? And what do you do with them on the other days?

As well as whether they enjoy it or not, do you? Also, you don't say how long during the week your DC is at nursery. How old are they, and how long till they go to school? Is this a day nursery and will they go to the pre-school for F1 or start properly in F2?

School ready also has much more to do with things other than drawing though. Confidence. Being happy. Can they get changed as independently as possible. Etc etc

No need to do anything really messy at home, we have drawers she can access with pens, felt tips, crayons, stickers, card, coloured paper, scissors and glue

He doesn’t seem bothered about art type things but could be because I’ve never done them much with him.

What activities do you do at home? Do you bake?

Sorry, some posts appeared when I was busy!

He does two days at nursery. He also does two afternoons at preschool although that’s more of a forest school setting he does do some craft type work.

We do spend a lot of time outside and he does have a reasonably varied sort of day. Just crafty type stuff that I’m really bad at!

No, I’ve never really done baking.

Would be sad for the kids to not get any creative play ever at all while at home . It’s a great emotional outlet and great for fine motor skills.

Supporting the development of Social skills may be more useful for reception/school specifically such as trying to dress themselves, using toilets and washing hands, using knives and forks, able to put on own shoes. Ability to sit still for periods of time: carpet time/assembly. Basic learning like recognising their name, colours, shapes and so on.

Would be surprising to learn how many children are generally not remotely ready for school!

I do think you should be doing some maths making activities but perfectly fine to dry them up to do it, encourage and supervise without having to join in much

We leave painting and crafts to nursery but do drawing (pencil or crayons), "water painting" and blackboard and chalks at home.

I'd have happily done more of it with DS but he wasn't fussed or just wanted to mix all the colours up (again) and then would be surprised it was brown. That and the interest soon waned and he wandered off etc

I didn't do much therefore. He was school ready. Read with him, didn't do anything formal on phonics etc.

He's in Y2 now, and only just occasionally wanting to draw (crazy machines mostly )

What do you mean dry them up, sorry? And maths making activities?

@Harrysmummy246 ha same. Tried to do colouring in a cafe the other day and when I showed him ‘look, shall I colour this part of the sea?’ ‘NO mummy!’ - OK then!

I'd probably encourage drawing because it's something he can do alone and it's good for practicing pencil control.

We let nursery get both our kids ready. That included changing into PE kit, being less reliant, getting a bit faster at it. But our nursery was really up for these things and also taught the kids to ride bikes on their daily walks/rides out.

I was happy to leave the really messy stuff to nursery but we always had paper, colouring pens and pencils, colouring books and things like play doh/kinetic sand available at home. DS wasn't bothered but DD loved all that stuff.

If you're worried about mess you could always do arty stuff in the garden if it's a nice day. Both of mine enjoyed drawing and writing on the garden patio with coloured chalk in the summer.