Learning over Christmas?

[Tailtwister]

DS1 has just finished his first term in P1 (Scotland) and we're really pleased with his progress. He's taken on a huge amount, not only in the classroom but coping with after school activities/club until 4pm 4 days. We had a formal teacher interview in Nov where the teacher said he was coming on as she would expect and there are no issues with his progress.

He's now off until 7th Jan and my initial thought was to just give him that whole time to relax and play. However, another Mum has said she's going to continue with reading and number practice (Biff, Chip and Kipper etc) over the holidays as she thinks they slip back a lot if you don't.

WWYD? There hasn't been any instruction from the teacher to do this and no homework set. I have some Reading Tree books at home, should I be doing some of these? We read together, but DS still isn't overly keen to do anything other than read the frequent 'easy' words himself so I don't push him.

(I know I've posted her a lot with anxious questions, so all replies are much appreciated!)

Oh and the only vaguely 'educational' thing the DCs have done today was watching the RI Christmas lecture.

Nora - yup, ds in year 6 had to learn some facts about where we live and write it up - fine, history, research skills, good ds in year 4 had to make a model based on a word. No research into the word , no need to understand the word (it's geographical/ historical) just make a model. Like we aren't inundated with rubbish and food and have a spare service to rock out the glitter and glue

I got those work book things from toy shops and they had some reduced in marks and spencer....maths and english, my DD loves doing them (6) and looks on them like fun so without making her do it, I just leave them in sight with a pencil and she will pick them up in her own time, and she loves the books she got for xmas, so is reading those anyway and is always reading when out.

what I mean is....are there things you can give him that are what he thinks is fun...rather than set boring work

DD likes doing work books too and I have the WHSmiths ones (literacy).

Agree with keeping it fun. Maybe some books you can read together.

I have one with no homework (DD1 Y6) and one with homework (DD2 Y4 a bit of math & a writing exercise - pretty minimal really took 20 minutes - which I'm certain has nothing whatsoever to do with 3 governors having children in that class).

I have always used Christmas as a time to read books we liked as children ourselves. A kind of after bath before bedtime ritual.

We've mainly read to our DDs. Listening to good literature and the rhythm of the language is important - and a nice change from the endless Biff & Chip diet. We've read A Christmas Carol - as individual chapters in the month before Christmas (DDs were Y2 & Y4 at the time) - a kind of reading Advent calendar that reflected how it was originally published in Dickens' paper. [went on to watch muppet version at Christmas] We've read Charlotte's Web. DH is reading the Hobbit to the girls and the rule is you can't see the movie unless you've read the book - or in the case of the Hobbit trilogy - far enough through the book. I'm not sure the girls like the Hobbit (no girl characters really) but DH is having a lovely time. I also read the Lemony Snicket series with our girls.

The school gives the girls books at Chirstmas - and they often really enjoy these - either reading on their own or reading a bit to us. It's nice having the time of an evening for an extended reading session - as we're not rushing off to work every day.

So we use the holidays to read different things and to largely read to our girls, we get them to read a page or two (when younger a paragraph or two) - but basically they get to hear good fiction, whole chapteres and just enjoy it.

Now in terms of maths/ word games - well that's the beauty of annuals or magazines this time of year. There's tons of puzzles/ brain teasers for them to play.

We play boggle and bananagrams. Have a puzzle on the go for the whole family. There's a great junior scrabble game (with words already chosen on side of the board) for very young kids. DD1 had friends round for a monster session of monopoly.

We also bake a lot (so lots of measuring/ timing).

We're very old fashioned and have DDs write thank you cards to people who've had us round and for presents.

Now both girls are KS2 - we've started the tradition of recording and watching the Royal Institution Christmas lectures. This year's is on DNA - entitled The Life Fantastic: www.rigb.org/christmas-lectures/2013-life-fantastic/about-life-fantastic?gclid=CI22qYSz3LsCFaXMtAoddjoARw - and available here: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search?q=Royal%20Institution%20Christmas%20Lectures - we started last year with their fantastic series on the periodic table/ properties of chemicals.

We also try and go to a play or the panto as a family (often with friends) - but a lot of this is also on tv these days.

So all in all - there's a lot going on here and I suspect if you think it through you're doing quite a bit of this.

The only thing I try to avoid for my girls is too much tv/ video/ computer time - especially when the weather is foul (as it has been).

HTH

I've got the children of 2 governors in my class PSBD and set no homework

some people might be interested in this childledchaos.me.uk/2013/12/31/picture-book-reading-challenge-2014/

We have no homework at and are and have been abroad for most of the break. My year 3 son has read all of book 1 of harry potter and watched the film as a treat; we also did a bit of mental maths practice as he is sitting the 8 plus in january. Year 1 son just read most days and year 4 dd read also. They have all done a little bit of music practice. Looking at what other people have done here is very little but hey ho we all need a break!!!

We too are watching the Christmas lectures and dd also followed their advent calendar through December. It's still on line here

YR 1 - we have had 3 reading books, handwriting practice some worksheets on time and to revise all spellings done in autumn term

Mine are reception and Y2. Both had a school book to read over the hols, but they did that in the first weekend.

I've kept their hand in with some maths games on the computer, RI Xmas lectures and sharing different books together. This weekend I'll get them to do a couple of workbook pages so they can practice handwriting before the term starts. Nothing 'homeworky' and stressful.