Who writes in the school bear book - year 1?

[Colourfulponderings]

DS is in year 1 and we’ve got the school bear come home this week, so we’re the first ones and the pressure of being the one to set the precedent is getting to me 😂.

This year the book is half plain at the top and half lined at the bottom, suggesting there’s a few lines to be written about the weekend. But who writes it? The parents or the child?

I don’t want to do it if it’s expected that the children do it, but also I don’t want to look like a show off being all ‘my kid can write this himself’ if it’s usually the parents.

Trying to remember when we did it but I think it was pictures with bear and child and we did the writing (was obvious we had written it and not trying to pass off as our child’s work but DC was involved in the photos

I would expect the child to write a sentence in year 1

I'd get your child to write a sentence or draw a picture. If you wanted you could then add more yourself.

I'd do most of it and then get DS to do a sentence at the bottom something generic like Bear and I had lots of fun.

If you really want to set the tone, go low. Single sentence from child, and for them to draw something. Let it take 5 mins. Don’t set the bar high. Other parents will thank you

Ah, that brings back memories.

The child is meant to do the writing. DS always thought this sounded much too much like hard work, so we compromised by taking photos, sticking them in and getting him to write the captions describing what the bear was doing.

The first thing the bear, and all his clothes, generally did was to take a trip in the washing machine. Class bears can get revoltingly grubby.

We used to stick a photo at the top and DS would write a sentence underneath. Agree with go low key. Bear can accompany you on whatever you normally do on a weekend.

Thank you. Yes, I definitely wouldn’t want to make it hard for other parents who’s children can’t write it, that was part of my worry.

And I definitely plan to go low key activities to show in the pictures, so far we have it sat on DS’s bike in the garden and helping to make breakfast.

We had this in reception and 90% of the time it was written by the student (of varying success)

Oh wow. There’s was no writing by the child in our reception one.

I'd get ds to draw a picture and you do some writing. Even printing out a photo in time van be a pain if you don't have a printer at home.
"This weekend bear went on a bike ride round the garden and helped out in the kitchen" is more than enough.

It is a mix in the ones we have across reception and key stage 1. Some is all parent, some all child and majority are a mix of both.

@User562377 perfect suggestion

i enjoyed writing that class bear went to Tesco under previous comment of went to Dubai 🙄😁

Haha! This brings back memories. It got quite competitive with our class bear, and if you were quite a way in, the pressure was on to do something interesting to write about! I remember one classic, where the bear got stuck in a tree (he was rescued eventually) after they decided to launch him on a stomp rocket!

Please go low. Our bear had been snowboarding, jet skiing and on all manner of exotic holidays by the time we got him.
We took him to the library. Lots of people including us, stuck in a photo of where the bear was. I can't remember if I wrote the text but it said something like 'Had a good visit to the library.'

When we had it, all the children had done the writing and most had photos in, lots of showing off activities as others have said. Dd drew a picture and wrote something about watching TV and eating crisps. Keep it lowkey.

Your child should definitely so the writing. Print off some nice pictures and think of some sentences together. Job done.

Parents get ridiculously competitive over these things.
Ours was a class of children with severe learning disabilities so parents had to take pictures and write.
I remember "Bear enjoyed lunch with Mummy's phd mentor"
"Bear flew to lake Lucerne for a weekend break." Not mentioning that the child was actually at home with carers.
We much preferred the reports of bear enjoying the trampoline with the child or watching the child trying something new.

Are you saying the parents took the bear out with them without the child?! That’s the weirdest thing ever 😂😂😂

OP I’d imagine it will vary. In year 1, particularly at this point, there will be a huge range of kids from those who can write a page, those who. Can write a sentence, those who can copy/trace a sentence and those who can barely form any letters. If it it were me I’d get my kid to write what she could then add a few bits myself (dictated by child) to accompany 3 or so photos of normal weekend activities (swimming, library, park etc).

My child wrote it as if he were the bear (we helped). It got accidentally locked in a car the first night at the garage so I had to persuade them to open up the garage to get it, then as it was half term we had a holiday so there were lots of things to write - but keep it brief if they're not really interested.

I'd expect the child to write it, but wouldn't expect great works of literature. "Me and bear at the park" underneath a photo

My sons drew a picture and wrote what they’d done themselves - the quality was very variable as one was much older in his year than the other