How much 'formal' learning do you do at home with your Year 1/2/3 DCs?

[TheIIlusiveShadow]

I feel like the most neglectful parent on the planet!

We listen to the reading, learn the spellings and have a positive parental attitude to school. That's it.

Have just picked my jaw off the ground, turns out DS's friends have been going through workbooks, computer tutoring and even photocopying homework worksheets from the other local school.

How do the teachers feel about this - do the kids come in inspired, confused or bored?
As parents did you get more 'involved' as they get older?

we do the same as you

The friend's parents sound completely OTT. I feel sorry for the child.

I have year 1 and year 3 DC. We do honework and spellings and Reading when I remember-.

I help the DC take an interest in the world around them and answer all their questions as best as I can. Why would anyone photocopy homework from another school?

My money says you live in the competitive south?

Homework is done at the weekend but I don't supplement it. We have doing the spellings after breakfast on the day of the test down to a fine art.

I think everyone who answers the thread will say that they do what the school says - reading and spelling. However, the reality is that plenty of people do educate out of school. If they didn't, educational materials like Jolly Phonics, ORT books, workbooks etc wouldn't be selling so well on Amazon etc. Previously, I haven't educated out of school, but recently I have discovered that most people I know do educate out of school and I now plan to. (Y1).

Well DS in in yr 4 and due to his ASD doesn't always absorb the topic being taught in school, so I do a lot of one to one maths with him, DP does maths and science with him, I encourage him to play on mathletics all the time, we work through SATS papers after dinner, and basically encourage him all the time to get his maths better and better.

I don't listen to him read, he reads in his head, to himself, and his reading is fine. Spellings we practice every morning over breakfast.

He likes being good at maths, so mostly enjoys our maths work, hence why we keep doing it. Having such a good knowledge of maths now encourages him to actually take part in numeracy at school, where he used to just hide under the table or rock.

I am happy with this level of extra work at home. It works for DS. I wouldn't do the same with another child because they wouldn't be the same as DS. But for him, with his abilities, he might as well be really good at maths, if he can, and he just wouldn't learn it at school alone.

The other local primary school sends home literacy and maths sheets every week, one family photocopies them for another family at our school.

Evidently because both kids are 'top set' but at different schools the curriculum pretty much overlaps. All of this was told to me in a completely straight forward, 'it's obvious', that's what you do manner. I think they though I was one of them because our house is littered with books, big newspapers and laptops.

My money says you live in the competitive south?

Homework is done at the weekend but I don't supplement it. We have doing the spellings after breakfast on the day of the test down to a fine art.

WTAF? Competitive south?

We do the homework the school asks for (which is quite enough).
We do stuff to support their learning informally as well - e.g. reading and talking about what we've read, maths via board games and cooking, answering their questions, taking them places, discussing current events ...

I love maths, I'd love to do maths with them, I think I felt I'd confuse them with my 1970s methodology.

The shocking thing is we're not south-east commuter belt but deepest, darkest, rural devon - our nearest escalator, McDonalds and Starbucks is 40 miles away.

My DS has SN so we might do a lot more than other parents to try and help him catch up a bit.

We do pencil worksheets - the ones with the dotty numbers for him to practice writing - if I hold the pencil with him we can do them together. We practice spelling his name and looking at picture books. W have been trying the Jolly Phonics DVD but he doesnt like that so much. We also practice his Makaton.

Posie I said "competitive south" because here there is no grammar school option and if you can afford it your kids will get into an independent school. So although everyone wants their kids to do well at school it doesn't affect where they will go for secondary. At this stage outside school DS's friends either play or do an after school activity cubs, drama, sport.. (OP is only talking about young children.) Hand on heart I only know of 1 child who does Kumon and no parent has recommended or asked me for a view on workbooks.

I probably do more than most. Dd loves learning, I love teaching. I do balance this with days out, trips to the park etc. So some teaching here and there; I can't see the problem.

DS is 11 now but his primary school had a policy of not setting homework, so we didn't do any formal learning apart from reading (which stopped when he was about 7 and was happier to read independently). I never needed to do spellings with him as he would pick them up from first sight anway.

We spend a lot of time doing more active activities, visiting museums and galleries etc, so he picked up a lot of things that way. We're in London and most of the schools around here are more competitive (I often see primary aged children having to do their h/w on the bus while we're on the way to a museum) but I chose his school because it had a more relaxed attitude, even though it's supposedly not as high-performing academically and has a difficult intake.

I only learned recently that my father was a maths whiz. That shows how much maths he did with us kids! I was never much good at maths. I don't mean arithmetic. I can do that well enough. I mean geometry, trig, algebra and so on. Now I really wish my dad had taken the trouble to pass on some of his knowledge. The only drawback I'd say is that my dad wasn't very patient. I think we discussed a statistics formula once, when I was much older. And I was abusing some sign. Mu, I think. And he got cross and walked off. So, I guess if you haven't got the patience and the motivation, even if you do have the knowledge, you can probably do more harm than good.

But personally I do believe in educating my children. I simply can't understand why my parents were the way they were.

DS (Y2) does his 'homework' in his first language (not English) every day. Some of it he can do independently, some he needs help/assistance with. We rotate the subjects, because we don't have enough time to do them all the way you would do in school, so he completed a writing workbook last year (1 page a day), then did a maths workbook which he really enjoyed, and now we're doing literature (midway), after which we'll probably go back to writing again (a different level obviously). Some days DS writes emails to extended family and this also counts as practising his native tongue (so he doesn't need to do his 'homework' that day). We started to do this on a daily basis in the middle of Y1, and before that he had worksheets and activities to do, but he only did them when and if he wanted to.

1-2 days a week are reserved for his homework from school (in English). School homework is 1 book a week to read, and a task in his 'Learn by heart' workbook every other week. The book that he's got from school right now has 162 pages in it Mostly DS does his English homework by himself, although I do help him if he wants/needs me to.

In Y1 we have also done school maths workbook which reflected what kids learn in the class. I don't think it taught DS anything new but he enjoyed doing it, and it opened up conversations about how they learn this material in school, what he likes, what he finds easy/difficult and so on. So was worthwhile but not necessarily from learning/development point of view.

DD (Reception) gets 'homework' in her first language too but can choose whether she wants to do it or not. Most days she wants to do it because that's what her brother does and she wants to be as good!

Homework from school (in English) she must do. This is currently 1 book a week for her to read, and 1 book every other week to read together (this is a book that she chooses herself, and is often well beyond her reading ability).

We spend about 20-30 minutes on the homework a day. Tasks themselves don't take this long but organising 2 children and answering all their questions along the way makes it half an hour. Also, oftentimes DD wants to also do (or at least look at!) DS's homework and vice versa!

we do stuff ad hoc.

dd does not get a lot of homework - which does leave more time than if she had a heavy load.

I own a fistful of age appropriate workbooks, that I can bring out if I spot a gap in her knowledge (e.g. Telling the time was a sticking point) - and have been known to print off Internet sheets.

However, my main input is to support breadth - which includes extra curricular clubs - and just random 'let's learn about something' diversions involving museums and you tube and so on. That's much more fun!

Well mine are all older now - all doing very well thank you, and we never did more than you are.
It's your ds's friends I feel sorry for.
I don't agree with homework sheets at all at Primary level.
Oh, I'm a teacher as well.

I don't think there is anything wrong with worksheets to practice and consolidate something learned in class, but often they just keep the children busy without really teaching anything that children don't already know. So doing worksheets from another school seems doubly pointless.

I thought I was a fabulously involved mum just by listening to DS read, because we didn't get to take anything home when I was at primary schools. Though I certainly didn't give him a grilling on what the book was about as seems to be expected of parents today. We didn't get 'spellings' home which is just as well as DS can spell perfectly well anyway.

The only vaguely educational thing we did was playing board games - snakes and ladders, ludo, backgammon, junior scrabble, monopoly, and a quiz game where you had to think of things beginning with a certain letter.

I'm a Y1 teacher. I would only ask any parent to do what the OP is doing. If they supplement that with talking and listening to their child every day, and maybe taking them to museums, places of interest etc once in a while, that's enough.

I have a parent who continually downloads inappropriate worksheets from the internet and sends them in for me when her DD has completed them. I'm really not interested.

My Dd1 is in (the equivalent of) Reception and we try to do one of the following every day:

-- handwriting practice (she writes her full name in cursive plus one or two other words. Cursive is important here)
Or
-- arithmetic (bought a Carol Vordermann workbook from amazon)
Or
-- spellings in English (we practice 10 new ones per week plus consolidate older ones)

Plus reading book every night without fail.

We also do craft, colouring, painting, play doh etc.

DS does reading eggs a couple of times a week, but he sees it as a computer game. We read, lots, but always have. We mainly do homework though....that's it!!

I have y2 and reception dds. We do reading books pretty much daily but nothing else. Dd1's only homework so far this year is to make a rocket this halfterm. She has designed it today and collected together the bits to make it with DH later on. We certainly don't do any worksheets etc and both dds are doing well at school. Maybe if the children were struggling I would do more....

Thank you, have calmed down now.

We read, we Google stuff, we have a big range of books and use the library.

Have just listened to DS & DD in the car discuss the different planets based on reading an encyclopedia, charlie & lola and a school assembly. They are alright.

I would definitely do extra stuff if they needed extra support like overmydeadbody DS or Glenshee supporting a bilingual house.

My kids are n't super bright or struggling, they are just like their friends. I just was n't expecting six year old tutoring in the state system.