Argh, this is the thread I said I wouldn't make.

[ButterAndPie]

We are in the third week of school for DD1, who is 5 in March. I KNOW I'm being daft here, and if I read someone else saying this, I would roll my eyes.

But...

She is whizzing through the work, and is moaning that they hardly do any reading and writing in school, and she likes the choosing but the table time is silly. I know 4yo children talk rubbish, and the school is known for being quite strict and pushy, but the homework doesn't seem very ambitious either (eg it asks for grown ups to do all the very simple writing, she was asked to just memorise the names of the ORT characters on the flashcards, she read her reading book at the first sitting). She did much more than was asked (off her own bat) for this weeks homework (my sister, who is a teacher, was shocked at how hard the original homework was for reception), then went off and did her Jolly Phonics workbook as well, and made me write down a story she had made up. We have a box of colouring in that I have printed off the internet (eg cbeebies type things) and the odd puzzle sheet or whatever, and she always finds the puzzle sheets or a map to do, so it's not that she is being forced to do these things.

Gah. Even reading this back, I know I need to chill out.

So, is there anything I can do to keep her learning while the teacher gets round to sorting out harder work? (I know the teacher is busy and needs to help the kids who maybe haven't had the same luck as to had a burst of learning before school, and I am not thinking she will be some kind of genius, but I don't want her bored and turned off for now. I'm happy for her to play at school and us provide more interesting stuff for her at home for now.)

I know she isn't hugely ahead, and there could be areas where she is behind, I wouldn't know as this is the first time we have really seen what seems to be expected. I kind of lean towards going over stuff now to make sure it is firm in her head, but how can I do that without her getting annoyed and bored? If we were still doing HE, I know what I would do - keep on with reading, work our way through the story of the world, do harder sums with buttons etc to help her count, and easier ones in her head, find things to research, write stories, etc, but would that fit with school or confuse her?

Should I make her do more colouring in? She doesn't like colouring in - I don't think she sees any point in it, but I suppose it will help her pen control.

I think at this age playing the park, playing make believe, dressing up and going on nature walks would be far more beneficial than sitting her in front of a PC or work books tbh.

You will probably have parents evening in a few weeks. If you don't want to appear like a pushy parent, that is your moment to raise things. Tell the teacher that she whizzes through the homework and wants to do more. Ask the teacher what they suggest you should be doing with her that would support the work they are doing in school.

My son is now in Yr 4 and I can honestly say that the best advice you have been given on this thread is to relax and not stress the small things.

She sounds fine to me and as others have said EYFS is a playbbased learning system so if she is coming home talking about what they played that is fine. I would be concerned about the wetting tho if it is daytime and more than the odd accident. What have school said about it?

IME reception year is all about getting used to other children and the systems at school, skills that are required are more the self help - knife and fork, recognising her name in her coat, being able to dress herself etc.

Hi ButterandPie:

First off it seems you have a very adored and clearly quite bright DD. Fabulous!

Second - you need to get her dry (for school at least) and managing the loo on her own. I suggest a reward chart. Have her chose a toilet seat (sounds mad but it works - you live with a wacky toilet seat for a few months, but in the end you get what you want - no more accidents). Think of it this way - if the teacher or teaching assistant is dealing with an accident they're not able to teach anybody (including your DD).

Third - as you have said yourself - you need to chill. This is just week 3/4 - her new teacher isn't just getting to know your DD, but all the children. S/he has to assess them on all sorts of criteria and decide what s/he's got to work with and where to start. S/he also needs time to settle them all into their first year at school - which some children really struggle with. So my advice is cut the teacher some slack until at least Christmas, by then they should be getting into their stride. (Think about it like this - with assemblies, recess, snack breaks & lunch, tidying up & going home time - your DD probably only has 3 hours teaching time a day at most).

Fourth - as some have responded - use your first parent/ teacher evening to positively say your DD would like more work & more challenging work. Stress that she loves school and is really enjoying x & y, and ask if they could recommend anything for her to do. Short of that start searching on the web. BBC Learning zone is fantastic. The Alphablocks (off CBEEBIES) is brilliant. There is all sorts.

Fifth - if you can - try and make time/ get time off to come along to reading mornings and workshops at the school. This will help you to get a stronger sense of where the other children are at and what the class as a whole is like and may explain why your DD is not the priority just now.

But above all ButterandPie - let her have some relaxed and unstructured play. There's all sorts of time, this truly is the end of her toddler years, she'll be a 'big girl' before you know it with lots of homework from school and wanting to do things all by herself. Enjoy this time to bake, watch films, go for walks, sign her up for dance classes, swimming, etc... as it will be gone all too soon.

Also, by all means start encouraging play dates with her new friends. Right now you should be concentrating on settling her into school (which is also a social situation) and helping the school by getting her dry and able to dress herself.

After Christmas, you can start to really push for more learning and less play, if that's what you would like for your DD. But I'd suggest you start to research what the national curriculum is for YR (just google it) this will help to put your expectations into context.

Personally I am glad that my rec ds has homework he can do easily & quickly. After a day at school he needs hos won time & space to chill. 6 hours is a long day at school when you are only 4.

keep learning through play and make it fun. loads of people will tell you to chill and not to worry as she is doing well and to concentrate on the toiletting/social but you can have fun learning through play too, as long as it is fun and not to the detriment of other things (which it sounds like it is not.)

playing shops is fantastic. she can make fruit and veg from paper/tissue paper... plenty of cutting and sticking painting to strengthen fingers. writing shopping lists and price lists. at first things cost 1p, 2p and 3p and she can pay with real coins and do simple adding. this can be extended to addition with bigger numbers and giving change later in the year. she may even go on to do "lots of" towards the end of the year given that she will be 5 in march. (bananas are 2p each. how much are 3 lots of 2p sort of thing) you can weigh things as well and introduce vocabulary like kilogram and grams

if she likes shapes, talk to her about how many sides they have, how many corners do they have straight edges or curved edges. you only need to mention these things in passing, if she is interested she will pick up on them herself. have you any blocks? when playing with them, (good for fine motor control too) you can use the proper names to refer to the 3d shapes... cylinders/cubes and cuboids. cut out paper shapes and let her fold them in half quarters or use a safety mirror to see what shapes she can make.

try getting her to help you peg out the washing, or play with cornflour mixed with water, or playdough and plasticine. get her drawing and writing in shaving foam, or painting with water on the back fence, or chalking on the path, or painting. if you have an easel use it or pin some paper to the fence to paint on/chalk on. jigsaws and lego type blocks are also good for fine motor skills.

talk about time, days of the week, months seasons. has she got a calendar to play with ? dd was facinated by calendars and clocks. let her play with containers in the bath and talk about full and empty. can she see any numbers on them that say how much is in each one?

the toiletting will come in time. have you been to see the school nurse for support? school can refer you if not.

how is her walking and movement? catching and throwing?

Some fun and games you can try to help with writing skills without it being too much of a chore for her:

Try something slightly subversive (not usually allowed) like using dry-wipe pen to write on kitchen worksurface/cupboard doors (it should come off melamine type surfaces with kitchen cleaner but test a bit first) or bath crayons to write on herself/bath tiles/willing family member at bath time. Give her some old decorating brushes and a bucket of water and let her "paint" with the water on the patio/house walls/fence. Stop while she is still having fun and keep it as a "special treat", ie don't do it absolutely every day.

Writing on vertical surfaces is particularly good for developing the appropriate muscles. Fat pens and brush handles can be easier for a young child to manage than standard crayons and pencils. Taping sugar paper to a door and using chalk is the cheapest way of doing this. you could "play" schools with her as the teacher and teddies and yourself as pupils - an opportunity for her to boss mum around that will probably appeal!

You could use the ideas above and play games like noughts and crosses - or mess about sharing a silly drawing. Children can be more motivated if an adult is joining in. Let her draw her own hopscotch squares with chalk outside or make up a track game or simple snakes and ladders game (chalk on patio) where she can throw a dice and use herself as the counter to move along the squares. From experience, chalk washes off paving/tarmac fairly OK in the rain, but is a killer to get off house bricks - so avoid chalking on the walls unless you like grafitti!!
You could also try games like "Operation" "Kerplunk" and "Jenga" that require fine motor control.

Thanks for all the replies - I am really going to try and calm down now!

Interesting that so many of you seem to think we need to concentrate on toileting - I will ask the teacher if she thinks it is an issue - me and DH are doing a few sessions of reading each and helping with the school trip this week so we might be able to ask then. At school she has had about one or two wet accidents a week, and once she was dirty, but that isn't like her - I think she eats too much fruit at school. Wet wise though, she wets about half of the days still, whether at home or school. We are nowhere near even trying overnight. She started potty training when she was just past her 2nd birthday, and we do everything that you read you should do, so I dunno. I remember having a lot of accidents myself at that age though, maybe it runs in families somehow. She is very daydreamy though, like I was - she zones out and goes off on a little dream, so it could be she gets distracted from needing a wee.

The teacher is brill - she seems just right in personality for our family as she reminds me of my sister. We're not expecting her to do more - in fact I was quite surprised at how much she is doing. It is more that what was sent home was so drastically different to what DD can do, and I know DD can be a little madam when she is bored, so I was just a bit worried. I am reassured now I think.

Some good ideas with shapes - she knows the names and attributes of all her shapes, and has a bit of an obsession with circles - for a while last year, she only liked food that was cicular but I'm sure we can do some games with that.

Shops is good - I don't know why I hadn't thought of that - she can do simple addition and subtraction, and she plays shops, but I hadn't thought of introducing coins and lists (I know, but sometimes you just don't connect things!) She can read the whiteboard that me and DH write up our real shopping liist on, or at least some of it, because she makes remarks about remembering to buy whatever, or why isn't such a thing written up.

She goes on the internet (obviously with an adult) as much as she can get away with - she loves it, so we limit her to half an hour at most each day. This is mostly reading eggs and cbeebies, but sometimes she wants to watch animals on youtube or whatever.

Reading wise, she reads to me at home from our books, so we are fine there. She also reads the odd word out from harder books. Emotions wise, she is obsessed with death and people being sad because someone has died, so we probably need to encourage her to be less morbid, lol. She told me a story she had made up called "the big misery" the other day. Strange child. She seems happy enough in herself though.

Walking and movement - I think she is the same as most kids, but then I don't really know how I would tell. She falls over what seems like a lot to me, but she is a lot more brave than me, so probably gets more opportunity to fall over. For some reason she is very bothered by not standing on cracks, and she manages that without falling over, so she must be fine.

My dgs was 5 last month and last week his number homework was to do with 'counting to 3'!!!!!He was counting to 20 nearly 2 years ago.His 2 year old brother counts easily to 10.They had to colour in one hat two shoes and three apples and say where they would fit in a picture.DD is giving it another week.Reading seems ok-little packs of words to learn to read and write and a new reading book every other day.I think the Reception teachers have the hardest job in education[I was a Secondary school teacher for 35 years and couldnt have taught reception for anything.

Good grief!!!!

My youngest is in Reception, and I also have a bright little boy a few years ahead, who is in top groups etc

Honestly, I can see now that the best thing you can honestly do, is to read, sing, play instruments, get down on the floor and play toy farms, dolls, colour in together, and don't worry!

Concentration, imagination, thinking things out... These are the sort if skills that they need for later. Not much point in being able to read and write if they can't think of a story!

Enjoy.

Put her in a foreign language school - then she can do all the easy-peasy stuff and learn another language at the same time. French schools give lots of homework.

Lillian - would be a good idea, if there was a foriegn language state school in our weird little ex mining town inbetween Sunderland and Newcastle...

Suppose geordie, mackem and english gives her three languages :)

You sound very worried and anxious. It is not a race. Reception is all about learning through play, learning to settle, learning how school works. It is not just about numeracy and phonics it is also about social skills, creative development, learning to learn, etc. etc. I would focus on different things after school. Things they don't do in school, like swimming lessons, dance, sports etc. In addition I would always try to read to her, every evening, and let her read her book or if it is a book without text let her tell about the book using her imagination. No need for lots of homework in reception, that will come in later years. Good activities at home could also be scrap booking, jig saw puzzles, board games, cooking/baking together (you can look at the recipe book together, measure together, talk about the ingredients, etc.). Good luck and try not to be too worried.

I'm going to ask to see the teacher tomorrow about toiletting. She (DD, not the teacher) was wet twice at school and once at home today. Apparently, the last time at school, she hid so well that the staff were panicking she had run away. They found her behind the piano. So she knows she has done it and she shouldn't, so how do we link that to not doing it in the first place? She was pretty much dry until I had to go into hospital recently, and then she lost it again.

Is she feeling stressed or overwhelmed do you think?
Definitely chat to teacher about toilets etc. Does she feel happy about using the school toilets?

I think that school is so stimulating and new that most children show some stress signs - our reception teacher says that toilet accidents are very common in the first few weeks. My eldest reverted to meltdown style tantrums. My youngest is having bad dreams. Neither child is/was upset, it is just the excitement etc of the new surroundings, particularly if they get involved and take it all in.

Do you think that stressing to her that it isn't a problem if she has an accident, check that she us happy to go to the loo at school, and reminding her to go as soon as she feels it coming, might help? They seem to get so involved in what they are doing, they don't get there in time!

Do you think I should have a word with FIL? He often picks her up, and when he drops her off at home, he says she has been "bad" or "naughty" if she has wet herself, before passing on any messages or even saying hello. I've not been saying anything, on the grounds that my strategy of not really saying anything and just sending her upstairs to get changed has obviously not worked either.

EG, tonight I met them in the street as they were coming out of the school gate, and I shouted across to DD "Have you had a good day at school?" and FIL replied for her, saying "no, she hasn't." then waved a bag at me, meaning he had wet clothes. DD didn't talk to me for about five minutes, but she could have just been tired.

Luckily, there were no other children around, but it makes me feel uncomfortable, so I hate to think how DD feels. But then part of me is thinking that my technique is obviously not working, and DH and BIL seemed to get toilet trained by all accounts before school, but me and my sisters didn't, so maybe it is our familt that does it wrong.

Definitely speak to FiL, this is not appropriate. She is not naughty, she is learning and she shouldn't feel like she's bad because of it.

She may just have a weaker message than the majority of us so the urge is not as strong. My Aussie cousin is a paedeatric osteopath and has helped a lot of 'wetters' (both bed and during the day). I am no expert at all but perhaps this might help?

Hello,
I'm another one for the CHILL OUT! approach. I'm regarding being in Reception rather like being in nursery, I'm not really expecting him to learn anything academic there, rather to have fun, fit in with school rules and routines etc etc. Anything he does learn that he hasn't already at home is a bonus!

I just think staying engaged with your DC and giving them space to play and chat is enough. DS can read a bit already and as they are not doing any at school at the moment we are keeping him ticking along at home, but only because he enjoys it and we enjoy doing it with him. He is also incredibly imaginative, fantastic at drawing, singing and dancing. His writing is pretty rubbish, and this is a slight frustration as he likes to write things and it would help him to be able to form his letters properly- looking forward to when they do this at school as he is not very receptive to me showing him!

For me, I'm almost the opposite to you- I see absolutely no hurry in the formal things (writing aside...), they will come, I'm more keen to keep his creative, imaginative spirit alive and to give him space and experiences to keep his brain developing and switched on to the world.

I would make time to play with kids from school, more important than activities I think.

By the way DS is obsessed with death as well and lots of gore!! All the stories he makes up end up with the characters meeting horrible deaths- I've started to ban some of them at least at certain moments!

Can you go back to basics with the toilet with reward chart etc and yes, you need to get all the adults to not give the accidents attention, positive or negative, holding up bag of wet clothes is not on IMO.

I think you definitely need to have a word with your FIL. She has accidents! It is not deliberate, and it is very very common. The brightest child in DS1's year was only dry at night in year 2, and had accidents too. It is just her weak point, so obviously if she is under stress etc, it will show there.

I would give her lots of cuddles, be really open about it, tell her it isn't a problem and you can chat it through with her.

PLEASE don't be cross with me- but is it possible that she's a little anxious? Could she feel a little rushed towards growing up and the wetting herself is her way of showing she'd like things to be a little slower and calmer and less pressured?

Could you back off completely on the extra work and just let her coast for a bit? it'll be fine I promise you, she won't get behind or anything- just see what happens. Read her loads of stories, watch tv - just relax for a while. Ignore the homework sheets- she's 4-4 year old's don't need homework.

I would put money on the wetting herself thing sorting itself out if you do.

Oh and tell Fil if he so much as mentions any pee issues you will rip his leg off and feed it to him with no salt, as my grandma would have said.

Oh, your poor dd

She is 4!!!!

I will say that again.

She is 4!!!!

and it doesnt matter when your dh and his sbilings were toilet trained

Its irrelevant.

Your dd is not them and she has obv been through a lot recently and has now started reception....give this poor child a break, will you??

Your FIL needs to stop with the comments. They are not helpful. If my FIL had said anything like that he would have been taken to one side and I would have said very sweetly..
"I am sorry you feel disappointed when ds wets himself, but he is only 4 and there have been some massive changes in his life recently and we are sure this is a reaction to those changes. Your comments are upsetting to him and me. I understand if you dont want to loook after him until this phase passes."

:( I thought I was doing the right thing - she really enjoys a challenge, and nags us until we give her puzzles or let her read to us - both me and DH enjoy quizzes and studying, so we thought it normal that she would want to do more than school, as we both did. She asks so many questions all the time, and sometimes I have to look the answers up, so I thought she needed more stimulation - eg yesterday, while she was sat on the loo, she asked me what "sympatico" means, and she wanted to know why there is a difference between "misery" and "miserable", and how to spell Rapunzel, and how much more than 36 is 50, and how does food turn into poo, and why do Romans not wear normal clothes. So I answer, and give her some puzzles back- eg what does sympathy mean, and what are some other words for sad, and how do you spell poo. If I answer all her questions, she says "well done, and no passes!" (She likes mastermind, long story, but for normal reasons)

Do you really think that is why she wets? I'm ashamed to say, I really wouldn't know how to answer her questions otherwise - do you just answer and move on without talking about the reasons behind things or doing an experiment or anything? Surely it is boring to not do puzzles and so on? The only encouragement we give her is things that she obviously enjoys.

I will say something to FIL. I just had a little cry, now you all say it I see how awful it must be for her - I went through school being scruffy and smelly, and being too shy to speak up, and being told off for asking questions or reading on in the books. I just don't want that for her - I want her to feel challenged, because that is fun.

I still remember being told off in reception for my drawing of a garden, because I had tried to put in perspective and draw a tree that wasn't "brown stick with green fluffy top", and it had no people (because I didn't want my garden to have people in it), and working through my dads nightschool maths work at home, or reading my mums nursing textbooks, and having to work out what "placebo" meant, because we only had a children's dictionary, I was only allowed to use the children's library and the internet didn't exist. I'm not even all that clever, just nosy, pretty much. Everyone said I was smelly and dirty and my parents just ignored it. My mum says now it was because she didn't want to make me feel self concious, but in those days, before central heating and so on was normal, we only bathed once a week, so I must have stank.
:(