Extension Work Ideas

[KatCan]

Hi All,

I'm looking for extension work ideas for my DD who is 6 years old.

She's been advanced a year at school and for about 6 months things have been going great. She's started to complain about boredom in Maths and Reading and I've spoken to the school who have basically said they are not going to provide any differeniated/extended work.

I've been looking at ways I can extend the work myself whilst not straying too far from what's being taught at school e.g. they are doing length in maths (homework was to measure lines with a ruler) and we've done a bit of extension with different types of triangles (different lengthed sides, etc) and looked at acute, obtuse and right angles.

However, I'm consious this touches on things that will appear later in the curriculum and I don't really want to cover things at home that she'll have to 'learn' again at school.

Has anyone any ideas for interesting and engaging things we could do together to 'spice things up a bit' for her at home? She gets such a kick when she feels she's accomplished something new!

You may do all of these things already but how about: a musical instrument (or two); a foreign language(or several); a home project or investigation into something she's interested in (for example, you could hatch butterflies and she could make a diary of it/write stories/do research into types of butterflies/do artwork or, if she's interested in art, you could find out about a painter, paint in their style, research one of their paintings in detail.)

It's often a good idea to challenge the child in other ways than by going ahead with the curriculum.

Baking cakes and bicuits is good for maths.

Hi,

I fully agree with Cory. We made yorkshire puds on Sunday. DD had to find recipe on internet, write it down (she's 5), then help weigh ingredients etc. It really made an impression, especially when they started to take over the oven!! A lesson that'll never be forgotten. Next week she wants to make them again, so we'll extend the learning by halving the recipe.

What a great idea! They'll be doing weighing soon, so that would tie in brilliantly, plus we get to eat the results .

Singersgirl - she's history daft so perhaps we'll look at doing a wee project over the Easter holidays.

Thanks for the inspiration!

Would agree to focus on things off the curriculum.

Ds loves science and kitchen science, electronics and robotics and computer skills. He has now learned to programme and was teaching them all about it in class (he's 7). There is so much you can teach them without stepping on school's toes - she will be even more bored if they start to do things at school she has already done at home.

i would steer clear of advancing her directly academically and would try to extend "sideways"
eg

• piano or another instrument
• chess
• other languages
• learn about space, Egyptians, Kings & Queens etc..

etc... love the baking idea

Yes, "sideways" is definitely my direction of choice!

They did Egyptians this term at school and, tbh, there's more she could tell me about Kings & Queens than I could her . I worry about a bit about fuelling the obsession, iyswim.

Space was last year's obsession..!

Like the idea of getting practical - she does love science, too, and we have one of those Kitchen Chemistry sets...but I know she'll want to abandon the book and make up her own experiments (which will require emptying the contents of the kitchen cupboards into a bowl. She's the same with baking - she'll not want to follow a recipe I find it really frustrating...then feel like a bad mother! Maybe I just need to go with it more!

nothing wrong with obsessions IMO :o

What about exploring different ways of displaying info about these topics - PowerPoint, web pages (use a free blogging site) and posters/leaflets to develop ICT skills?

Also check out lapbooking - it is a really fun way of summarising a topic :)

FreudianSlippery - had never heard of Lapbooking before - it looks amazing! Totally love it - could be a fantastic outlet for that history obsession!

:o

I haven't actually tried it yet admittedly - my DCs are only 1 and 3 - but I can't wait til they're old enough.

Don't blame you.... I secretly want to nake my own !