How well does your year 6 child get together a project independently?

[UnfortunatelyMe]

DD1s school is giving the year 6's a project to do each half term to get them ready for independent learning at secondary.
Which is all good...
DD1 know that she needs a front cover, a contents page, and that she needs to gather some information, but im not sure whether shes lazy/thick or what but she seems unable to get it together in one heap.
My suggestions are ignored.
At the moment im letting her drift, and am not poking my nose in...but there will be a huge fuss when it needs to be handed in.
Should she be able to get it together without direct instructions from me?

anyone?

DD1 found all this easy from a very young age. DD2 struggled and needed more guidance from us, mainly because she was so busy thinking "out of the box" and having wonderful creative ideas that she wasn't getting all the bog standard stuff done.

VAries hugely from child to child. Has she got some relevant books from the library? It can be easier to start off doing some book research. Many children get confused and snowed under when they look up websites unless you know it is a particularly good one.

She only needs to get it together 'in one heap' when she's found all her info and is organising it, no? Not quite sure what you mean by that

She is, what I would call, taking notes, at the moment, but hasn't done anything in depth, the books from the library, have been returned, and no huge chunks of info were taken down.
She's doing about Anne Frank, and tonight she had coloured in the cover tartan, as Anne's diary was.
Shes also reading Anne Franks Diary, has watched the movie, and has looked on the internet.
Tonight I asked to see her contents page, as she had said she had done one...and it was all pretty..and said CONTENTS...but didnt have any thing listed!!!!
As we were making dinner I said, Your going to have to think of what you are going to write about, you know, her childhood, the time in the annex(sp?), concentration camps, maybe what sort of life you think she may have had if she survived....
All ignored...
She doesn't seem to have any better ideas herself.....but doesn't leap at my suggestions either.
The one heap thing was, I do know that even when I have prodded her to extract information, she cant seem to seperate it into heading/topics/relevant places..

These blardy projects drive me mad. She isn't thick, probably just overwhelmed. My DD will no doubt be fine when she has to do this, but my DS (not thick by any means) had to be pretty much spoon-fed to achieve a C. He needed a lot of help with contents/ chapter headings/ layouts etc, and then a lot of prompting to actualy produce the content. This sort of thing just doesn't float everyone's boat, so just decide on the degree of help/ support you're prepared to give and go with that. Don't worry about what you 'should' or 'shouldn't' be doing - the project police won't come knocking at the door!

Project Police
I am concerned that she will never quite get the doing it herself thing. I really don't mind helping, brainstorming, suggesting tit bits, but there is very little point in me throwing the whole lot at her..which, I can foresee happening.
Hmm, maybe I will sit and chat and see what she thinks she needs to be doing...then if we agree on some headings...and see how she goes from there.
Thanks guys.

That sounds like a good approach. I'm not sure I even get the doing it myself thing - maybe one day!

I find chatting about the headings/areas of interest and then immediately getting her to write down the word helps. Once something is on the page it provokes the next heading.

Blank pages are scary at any age.

My yr 6 child had a half term project (Victorian houses) and we live in one which is very badly modernised so discussion about what was missing really helped as it promoted more thinking around the topic. So maybe talking about clothes at the time, toys at the time, foods at the time can help.

DS didn't have any problems in Yr 6 but he was allowed to do a project on anything that interested him.
He chose A History of Games Consoles.

We did throw some ideas his direction like a timeline. But he did a survey in his class of which were the most popular games console, which girls and boys preferred etc.
I was actually quite amazed how much information he did manage to find out about sales, the different companies etc

His teacher said she knew he hadn't cut and pasted because of the spelling, my favorite was "awfisherly" for "officially"

He and another boy won a prize for their projects, so his might have been the exception rather than the rule.

Result!- teacher wants to check how much they have done so far...and so coming home in the car we discussed Headings...a lot of...I dont knows. And deep exasperation from me...BUT she has came in, thought of 7 decent headings and she put them in order...so im pleased about that! Now to get these blank pages filled up!

Anyone know a good www site which has tips on tackling projects for Y5/6?

Both my dcs had to do one but were given v little guidance (as far as I could make out.) It's very easy to get bogged down on the www, or think you've done something useful by just cutting and pasting.

I encouraged them to brainstorm and make a mind map, and used the old 5Ws and H (who, what, where, when, why and how.) But I'd be really interested to see some proper material aimed at Junior kids to get them started with good habits/techniques from the start.

bumping this to see if anyone does know any good sites...

Help her. Don't do it for her, but don't leave her to fend for herself either. Sit down and talk the project through with her - you could easily have the conversation around the dinner table at night.

When the DSSs (11, 13) have bigger-than-they-are-used-to homework projects, we talk them through them a lot. And we review their progress periodically.

ds hasn't had to do one in that format yet . We more often get posters or leaflets. Given he is dyspraxic, it is pretty challenging for him to organise and no he can't do it independently but is getting better.