Pre-school/ Reception Year Education.

[CaroleHender]

Does any one else find the time to do those work book bits in comics?

My daughter, now 5, really enjoyed doing all sorts of work book activities and I found myself buying many of the activity books aimed at pre-schoolers. However many were boring, got too hard too quickly, and were subject specific. eg. a book for counting, another for handwriting etc.

Therefore I have decided to design a more comprehensive programme of activity sheets that build very gradually from learning to count, phonetic sounds etc. up to simple sums and early reading. Designed to be fun to do, including games, rhymes, stories and things to make rarther than repetitive 'work sheet' stuff.

Before I spend a vast amount of time designing the whole programme, (I was, before motherhood, a graphic designer and I have consulted expert advice regarding content) I would welcome any comments from other mums. I know not all children enjoy this sort of thing and not all parents have the time, but do you consider the idea to be too much to young, or a good thing to spend a couple of hours a week completing these sort of activities with your child?
Thanks, Carole

Message withdrawn

Carole - I presume you are thinking of this as a money-making venture. IMO there is already loads of material on the market already, and if you shop around you can find something that will suit your child. I can't see any particular advantage of the worksheets you are suggesting, or any particular market. Here children don't go to school until the term after they are 5, so I have done a lot of this sort of stuff with my eldest. We use comics, activity books, games, and all sorts of materials made up by us on the spur of the moment.

Sorry, was that too negative? But I also think that if children are in full time school when they are 4, then they are probably getting more than enough of this sort of thing, without doing extra at home as well - except for in the holidays. There are also various organisations, such as Kumon, who do worksheet-based programmes.

Yes I agree with you KMG there are loads of stuff out there and that is part of the problem. It is all very disjointed.
As far as I know there is no other programme on the market that starts from the basics and works systematically at your childs pace and covers a whole curriculum of themes and activities. Kumon Maths and now their English programme is very systematic but it is also very boring and does not cater at all well for this age group. Parents tend to have to force their child to do Kumon, often there are tears in the classroom and I personally think this is too much stress to put children of any age under. (One of the reasons why I resigned as a Kumon instructor.)
I believe however that there is a lot to be gained by parents spending time one to one with their children enjoying the discovery of learning, and with this programme there would be some naturally building progress and support for what they are doing.

Carole, have you thought of adding a prize element or reward system, something really silly, to up the fun content?

I'm sure you know all about those factual books aimed at older children (7 - 11 years olds at a guess) that use humour, like 'silly science'. Are yo thinking of adapting this approach for younger children?

Have to say my young son would see any type of work sheet as 'work'. Don't know how you'd get round that, except bribery - sellotaping a sweet to the page possibly. I know others in his class who actually like doing their`homework, though.