And the latest hare-brained homework project is...

[Honourspren]

Outing, hence NC (though I like this new one, might keep it 😁).

For a class of 7-year-olds, homework this half-term:

Design and create a game that uses magnetic force. You will have a chance to try out your games and evaluate them as a class.

I am thoroughly annoyed, on several counts:

• The game uses magnets, which school obviously cannot supply. We therefore either have to fork out to supply our own or guess the school magnets' strength and dimensions. Kids whose parents neither own magnets they can spare, nor have the money to buy their own will automatically disadvantaged.
• There is almost no way to design a game without also supplying other materials. At the very least, cardboard - even if you go for a maze-type game, the paper won't be strong enough not to rip once you try out the game, and again, without knowing what magnets the school actually has, you cannot design a suitable map. This means planning for standard magnets, so enough cardboard for at least A3/A2 size is needed. For a racing game or fishing game (both suggested) you need to build 3D walls to stop the magnets from interacting with each other. You need a supply of paperclips for other games.
• Which means parents (let's face it, mums) will need to get involved. Find the time to plan and build together, even if 7-year-olds can decorate alone.

Now, my child is very fortunate. I know how magnets work well enough to help come up with a realistic plan (many 7-year-old plans are far too complicated and designing a working game is well beyond the mental capabilities of many young children, who will want to see theirs work come evaluation day). I can supply materials because I collect craft materials, I can supply magnets because I had the money to buy some. I can sit down with my child for a day and make a game, because I am fortunate enough to be off work.

Many children won't have that. Any of it.

We've done many craft-based activities that school asked us to do, but all of them so far were possible to do with little help. This one, however, is not.

AIBU to say that teachers should think carefully before assigning such projects to children over half-term?

Agree. I would never set a homework like this (primary school teacher) as I know majority wouldn't do it and I wouldn't blame them! Times tables, spellings and reading are all that is needed, with the occasional poster etc for those that want to do it.

You’re massively overthinking this OP, and approaching it like you’re making a prototype, not your kid doing their homework.

Chuck them some fridge magnets, paper clips, thick paper/ thin card, and some felt tips and leave them to it.

Or don’t do the homework. I promise you the teacher doesn’t give a shit at 7 if this is done or not.

DC (6) has to find a recipe, read it, and make it. Aren’t we lucky that we have the disposable income to buy ingredients for the thing they want to make, and that I’m off work this week to do it with them.

It’s marginally better than the papier mache model I had to make for them in Reception, with raging Covid, taking breaks every 10 minutes to lay down.

I teach Y3 and would never set anything of the sort. What on earth is the point? I'd rather children just did some reading (which seems like too big an ask for most parents anyway).

Thank you. So do I. For many many years I was one of them.
I would have found a way around whatever we didn't have because I never wanted my kids humiliated. Necessity is the mother of invention.
I find it difficult to believe that people can only imagine people with lives and circumstances similar to their own.

You don't have to do either of those things.

Yes, DC's teacher is very inexperienced. Perhaps, after this, they will see just how unobtainable decent results are.

Yeah, you show 'em, op. Useless ECTs. They need telling. Sounds like no other parent will.

Makes me think the Class teacher has thought 'shit, we haven't covered all the science for the year - I know let's cover forces for homework!'
Sorted💪

Surely you eat? Just get them to help make a meal you'd be doing anyway.

Or more likely thought "shit, school policy is I have to set homework/Emily's mum has already asked twice what the half term homework is" and googled "year 3 homework project" and just went with whatever looked easiest.

Really? Do you honestly think that every child gets a meal cooked from a recipe?! Do you not realise there are children who survive on toast, cereal and instant noodles or whatever easy to heat food the foodbank has for every meal?

I live in a lovely middle class area but I’m very aware of how an awful lot of children live.

Having some basic arts and crafts supplies around the house is part of parenting. Most of the supplies for his project can come out of the recycling bin.

the only real catch is the magnets. You are not wrong that the exact size and strength makes a huge difference in planning. Those should have come home from school with the children or this should have been a project where kids being recycling materials and build projects in class.

Here's one.

Guess the age of the coin with a magnet

Depending on the age of the coin, some coins are magnetic. Some aren't. Depends on when they change the alloy inside.

So you just need a magnet. 2 coins - and you can guess which one's older than the other.

It's magic!!!

What Are UK Coins Made From? - The Coin Expert

Oh for goodness sake. Of course I realise.
Supernoodles and pot noodles have instructions on the back. Just make whatever you're having. You don't need to be Delia Smith.

Yeah, cheers for that 😂

They want to make a cake though, like all their friends?

Another one who hasn't read the thread.

We had to make a Roman/Greek recipe. Or make a Greek temple. Or make a mosaic.
Yr 5.

I groaned and rolled my eyes but we did the mosaic and it only took about half an hour in the end.

We cut some paper into squares and used felt tips to colour them, and then DD prit stick'd them in a pattern on a bit of white card from some packaging.

Our school doesn't fuss if this type of homework doesn't get done though. Thank god.

The homework is to follow a recipe. While it's a homework I wouldn't set for reasons explained above, I don't think it needs to be any harder than just doing a meal you're already doing.

This is an excellent game!

You're over thinking this surely, one rod, one child, several children sitting round counting to 10. Child 1 goes first, they manage to pick up 20 fish in 10 seconds. Child 2 goes second and picks up 18. Child 1 is the winner

Fin.

I voted YABU because I think you're overthinking this.

Get your kid to design something. Whether it's realistic or not, you can work with him if you want to refine it.

Use a fridge magnet or don't, the teacher doesn't really care. Just showing some imaginative, curriculum-adjacent play is what they want to see.

Wholeheartedly agree OP.

Being fair about what OP is saying, this would have been a nightmare for me as a child. For various reasons, my parents' education was curtailed before either finished high school and some of it was not even in English. I would have had absolutely no help on a project like this or, at that stage, much spare money. There is a difference between implicit and explicit teaching. Implicit teaching is currently fashionable. All this supposed discovering things for yourself is a very inefficient method of transferring knowledge and disadvantages children whose parents don't have the sort of skills which fit with these sorts of projects. Anyway, I'd rather maybe watch a film with a child to work on their French or have music lessons rather than this sort of foolishness. I mean just how much does a 7 year old need to know about magnets? My parents were very supportive and encouraging about my education but I certainly don't recall any projects like this being handed out to me as a seven year old.

My ds was studying mummification as part of learning about Egypt.
He was about 7/8

For his half term holidays they were asked to leave some meat to rot on the windowsill.

We re vegetarian !