Learning to spell the days of the week and put them in order

[SuedeEffectPochette]

What year group do you think this would be suitable for as a homework?

Year one. However I have taught year sizes who couldn't spell them, so I would say any age really.

DS is in Year 1 and, although he might get a little mixed up I'd definitely say that's the right level.

DS currently doing this and he's reception. Seems to know them pretty well so think it's appropriate level.

Ah well it is year 1 but it seemed a bit advanced to me. Clearly I am wrong then :(

I am a retired TA, but I am afraid more and more is being demanded of very young children; it is, after all, only a couple of years since they learned to TALK.

Children who have parents that can support their learning will probably be OK, but I have known parents who couldn't even read.

Only in ten year's time will we know if these were the correct policies or not.

(And I'm not even certain if the apostrophe in "year's" is correct!?)

I expect my year 1s to read them and put them in order, but I haven't asked them to learn to spell them yet. There are far more important words for them to learn to spell first! I reason that at the end of this year/year 2 they'll learn to spell them more easily, and I'd rather spend a short amount of time teaching the spellings later on rather than a long time learning them now.

It is a year 1 objective on the new curriculum, but there's nothing statutory which says the point in the year at which they have to master it. Children make such huge strides forward in their learning in year 1, something which will be comparatively difficult now will be much easier in the summer.

Ferguson, it's "...in ten years' time..."

I think most probably know the order of the weekdays in reception? For spelling, year 1 seems to be the right time.

DS2, who is 3 can tell me what day it is (some times with a little prompt), and what day comes tomorrow.
DS1, who is in Y1 can do days of the week, what day is it tomorrow / day after tomorrow / yesterday. Wouldn't want to see what phonetic attempt he could make of writing them, but fairly sure he could read them well enough to work out the order of pre printed cards.

The level of spellings we are on are (can I remember last weeks?) ring, sing, sung, hung, sting, hang, rung.....

Ds is in yr 3 and has them as spellings. He could put in the right order a long time ago but is struggling to spell Tuesday still.

My dd was taught it in Y5. Most of the kids in her class mostly knew them but were shaky on a few. It's a good approach, IMO, because it minimises the amount of work. That frees up time for Y1 children to learn more useful things.

I have the same attitude toward most things which can be learned naturally. Why bother to make kids work to learn it formally at an early age, when most of it will come later without any effort? Eventually you just go and identify the gaps and fix them. By Y5, my dd had already absorbed it the days of the week by osmosis, except the spellings of "Tuesday" and "Wednesday", which she was then ready to learn.

My DD is Y2 and has had some of the months to spell but not days yet. She's top spelling group too so I'd say Y3 to spell them younger to just order them.

DD is year 1 and has been asked to learn to spell them this half term which she could do after a couple of attempts at getting Tuesday and Wednesday wrong.

DS1 had them at the beginning of Y1 this year as one of his first spelling tests

Thanks Great Joan -

Yes, of course it is! I just felt it wasn't right as my fingers typed it! And I claim to have read Lynne Truss. She'd be ashamed of me!

I would have expected most R children to be able to order them (indeed quite a lot of preschoolers can order the days of the week) and to spell them in Yr1. My daughter's YR1 class did the weekday spellings a few weeks ago. Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday really are very simple to sound out and spell.

Suede:

Just to say that if you're against this or feel it's too much please consider the alternative:

DD1 didn't alphabetise in primary

DD1 wasn't given days of the week or indeed numbers (millions/ thousands/ hundreds/ thirty) to spell

DD1 is now in Year 7 and is having to swiftly learn all this. She just discovered that Wednesday isn't Wendsday. and didn't appreciate it was linked to an ancient god - Woden: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wednesday

It may be too much for YR/ Y1 pupils and maybe something that's easier to pick up in Year 2 - but we order our lives by the days of the week - Tuesday I have swimming/ Friday I have choir, etc.... - so learning about the days of the week - maybe even their heritage - THORS Day becoming Thursday en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thursday.

Calendars are artificial constructs to structure our year (which effectively is the period of time it takes the earth to travel around the sun which we see play out as seasons) - there are many different calendars: www.timeanddate.com/calendar/julian-gregorian-switch.html or en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_calendars and in the main they are linked to the agricultural year - times of planting/ harvest/ etc...

for example:

HTH

I would say learning the order should be reception, but spelling year 1 or 2. My ds is in reception and has picked up the order naturally and knows what to expect on what days in terms of what he is doing at school, e.g he knows PE is Mondays and Fridays.