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?

so you’re saying that there’s a large cohort of poor, thick 7-year-olds who don’t know that a magnet is not an edible thing, and they’re going to be scarfing them down like maltesers? maybe they’re starving because their poor, thick parents can’t afford to feed them? righteo, mate. you just carry on with these baseless accusations and stereotypes. whatever floats your boat. your initial aibu was poor parents were too illiterate, stupid, poor, unmotivated to do this project with this children, not that 7-year-olds were going to swallow the magnets. you were going on and on about your privilege, and posting post after post painting yourself as a some clever muppet, whilst painting poor mums as stupid, unmotivated and too poor to buy magnets for their kids.

I'll never understand why a certain type of mumsnetters hijack threads purely to be spiteful and nasty. You must lead a sad life.

I know what it feels like not to have a penny to spare. Or the time. Or even the headspace. Given the voting results, I am not alone.

Either way, I do not need to justify my experiences to you.

your experience is not the experience of all poor people, so stop making it out to be.

Where has OP or anyone else claimed that it was the same for all poor people?

You are clearly projecting some sort of insecurities here.

oof. Nice assumption there.

I'll never understand why a certain type of mumsnetters hijack threads purely to be spiteful and nasty. You must lead a sad life.

Lovely.

no one in their right mind is taking apart toys, cupboards or other things for the sake of a school project.

But how do you know that. Really? You speak for everyone? I would deffo take a magnet out of a toy for this project - it's actually a great idea. I'm all for repurposing items. I consider myself quite sane. (But I have also contradicted you, so I guess you might beg to differ.)

...And at the risk of being accused of 'hijacking' this thread with more than one post -

if you were really concerned about the poor unfortunate families who don't have two magnets to rub together (and convinced of their inability to complete the task), you would have refused to facilitate the exercise in a spirit of equality and fairness.

anytime anyone on this thread has come with a sensible suggestion as to how poor mums can complete this project, it’s been shot down by those who purport to be the voice-of-the-poor-and-disenfranchised. no, they can’t buy the magnets. too poor. no, they can’t go to the pound store. too poor. no, they can’t figure out how to do the project. too poor, stupid and lazy (lack motivation). maybe the school can provide the magnets or OP can donate them? no, the poor will eat them. as well, it’s not a PhD level project as many others have pointed out, but the OP won’t accept that. excuse after excuse after excuse. but who’s making the excuses? not the poor themselves, but the virtue signallers, do-gooders, know-it-alls.

Well obviously it’s not the experience of all people on low incomes. Some will have a spare fiver to buy magnets, some most definitely will not. If some people are using food banks, it’s pretty obvious that some don’t have anything to spare for a random extra purchase at fairly short notice.

Your experience is not everyone’s. You are obviously canny with what little you have a budget carefully. I’m not sure why you are taking this so personally.

Well, if you actually know what it's like to be skint, you'll know that a game that has to include a magnet needs...a magnet. And if you don't have the money to go and buy a magnet and you don't have a fridge covered in the things because you've got way more important things to spend your money on like food, you can't do it, as taking the TV apart to get one out of the speaker cone or disassembling a phone isn't exactly a realistic option.

If you have a magnet and paper clips or pins, it's fishing for paper fish, pulling little paper cars round a track or pulling something round a maze. Or, as I did end up doing the speaker cone magnet through a fortuitous taking down the bin bag when somebody had trashed a stereo and the nuts from my IKEA table, because it was so strong (and heavy), I made DD a target game where you had to flick nuts with paper boats stuck on them towards a goal over the magnet (placed underneath a tray made from keeping the cereal in its bag in the cupboard and cutting up the box).

It looked shit, weighed a ton and the teacher chucked it in the bin because it wasn't safe to have the kids playing it. Which meant I couldn't put the table back together again until I'd been paid.

You're too busy being offended to think straight. If somebody doesn't have the money or the stuff already there, they don't have the money.

But how do you know that. Really? You speak for everyone? I would deffo take a magnet out of a toy for this project - it's actually a great idea. I'm all for repurposing items. I consider myself quite sane. (But I have also contradicted you, so I guess you might beg to differ.)

Would you really take a magnet out and destroy a commercially produced toy to use it in some project that a 7 year old could make and would probably be binned later? The toy could likely be passed to another family when no longer needed, this project cannot. Also everyone suggesting fridge magnets, given the size of them, how on earth would they work in a game?

I don’t think anyone is suggesting taking apart a fully functioning and valuable toy. Although, if it’s a toy that is no longer played with, perhaps the parent would consider it a good option since there is a lot to be learned from the project, and well-loved second hand toys have little or no monetary value. And since when are fridge magnets so massive?!

Why are you looking for obstacles?

I agree with the OP, so many schools need to reflect upon the tasks they set. As a child many moons ago I remembered being issued with a scrap book at the end of summer turn. As we were going to have the same teacher the following year we were to fill the scrap books over the summer with info about our lovely six week holiday. I had a mother who never left the house, no father or other relatives to visit and no money either. When I failed to produce a book at the end of the holiday I was shown up in front of the whole class for being too lazy to make an effort. This hasn't changed much over the decades since then, maybe the public humiliation is a thing of the past but the shame kids feel for not being able to participate due to circumstances beyond their control lives on. It used to piss me off too with my own DC to see all the work turned in by parents and mine who had been left, in the main, to complete projects themselves.

Ah yes, those projects, along the same lines as the class plush toy, which went home with everyone and you had to write about the wonderful things you got up to with them during the week.

I remember the third time it was our turn (well before Covid, with my eldest).

Beforehand, I had gone to great pains to remember not only the toy but also the camera, taking pictures of what we got up to over the weekend. We didn't have much money, so it was the park, some crafts at home, that sort of thing (while wistfully looking through pages and pages of theme park visits, mini holidays etc. the other kids seemed to have in that book).

That time, I lost my rag. We were moving house that week, having just lost our beloved house due to the landlord selling and having to move yet again. I'd asked whether we could swap weeks, to no avail.

So I took a picture of the thing on the washing line, pointedly stating that this was where the teddy spent its weekend while we were busy moving house.

Never heard of the teddy again, I'm sure up until Covid it still made its rounds and people after us also felt embarrassed about not getting up to much.

so what’s the point of this tale? get rid of the class mascot and journal because it might make some people feel embarrassed about not getting up to much? we live in a society where there is economic inequality. deal with it, or you will make yourself sick with bitterness. besides there’s nothing wrong with crafts and park— those are the sort of things that a lot of families get up to during half-term. and the best journal stories anyway were the ones where the mascot was in a made up scenario (e.g., visiting fake exotic locations).

The ones where the kids say 'You're lying' whilst the parent tries to convince themselves that it's about the storytelling, not the fact that the kid is incredibly conscious that the others in the class did exciting things and all they could do was pretend and be laughed at for it?

I made up stories as a kid to try and fit in/keep to the 'Tell us/write about what you did in the holidays' instructions' There were always other kids more than happy to call it out for the amusement of the class.

Has anyone ever had project homework to earn achievement badges? My eldest's primary school used to do this. You had to complete each activity in the booklet over the space of a term and evidence that you had done so with photographs and a written account, every term from reception onwards.

Most things were straight-forward: run in long grass, climb a tree, do roly-poly down the hill type stuff.
Others were, again, resource- and time-dependent and needed input from parents: make a musical instrument, follow a recipe to bake a cake, fly a kite, grow plants from seed, go camping,...

I fully understand why they were encouraging children to do all of these things. They came from one of those "100 things to do before you're 10" kind of lists and were spaced out termly for children to earn their badges while giving them life experiences. But again, the insistence on children completing all of these activities meant that some would have been left out.

Just get child to write/draw a theory and as the teacher said they will try it out at school (using their own magnets)
you're over thinking it

Just don't do it. Homework is completely pointless at this age anyway (other than reading which I'm sure you do anyway). I certainly wouldn't spend any time completing "homework" FOR my child, what is the point of that?!?

Tbh I often used to wonder, is thos a social project?

I.e the school finds out whose parents have money and are clever, can work out who needs more help etc. and always found that horrible and patronising.

I used to call them the lollipop stick and shoebox projects. They'd be sent home on Monday evening, due Tuesday and require
Lollipop sticks
3 shoeboxes
Cotton wool
Glue
Glitter
Bobble eyes
Wool
Varnish
Leaves

You know, all the stuff you keep in your spare hoarders cupboard lol

One of my children had to design three cheesecakes inspired by a Dylan Thomas poem... Comedy gold

What the actual 😂

Specifically cheesecakes as well?