If your y1 is flying what additional work/ resources do you use!

[Notthinkingclearly]

My dd is 6 and had a great first year and was in top group for all areas. This year she seems to be really dropping behind. Having to have extra help with maths etc. I help out in classroom once a week so can't help notice that the children in the top group all have parents as teachers. I listen to my dd read every night but must admit I don't do anything else. If your 6 year is excelling do you do extra work at home? Any extra resources that anyone can recommend- books or ipad apps? I am willing to put a bit of extra work in but don't know where to start. I am guessing it can be a 10 minute routine if you know what to cover. I just feel like I have let my dd down just because I am not a teacher.

I don't do anything at home apart from encourage DS's natural curiousity. We do end up Googling fairly often to answer his questions, and he uses Mathletics sometimes. That is it apart from doing reading with him most days. I take the view that my role as a parent it to support him, but it is not a race, and I'd rather he learns at his own pace with my support, than try to race him through it before he is ready.

You don't need to do formal stuff for them to learn. Baking, playing games. Visiting places, talking about what you are doing and buying. Like you do with a toddler, but now they are older. Watch documentaries and engage them in the wider world.

My ds is recently enjoying this site, if anybody is interested.

www.aplusclick.com/index.html

It's American, but it's free. And you can compete against children from all over the world.

We tend to visit family a fair few times a year with 3 hour or more journeys in the car. We only let her watch DVDs for 1hr of these journeys (the straight, motorway bits as she gets travel sick) so the other 2-4 hours are playing games or listening to story tapes.

The games we tend to play are 'educational' in that we'll play things like 20 questions (Player 1 thinks of an animal, player 2 has to ask questions with yes/no answers in order to guess the animal) or what we have dubbed the 'animals and numbers game' (Player 1 asks a question such as '6 cats, how many legs?' and player 2 works out the answer (with a lot of talking through how I got the answer on my part...)). We also look at number plate letters and try to think of a silly sentence using those letters, so UHH might be 'Unicorns Have Hankies' - again, allows for modelling of more interesting vocabulary.

We also do memory games like 'I went shopping and I bought ...' Each person needs to remember all the previously bought items before adding a new one. We also do alphabet games so either thinking of words in a theme beginning with each letter of the alphabet, or things we can see.

I think the key is not doing extra academic work with them, but including learning in all parts of their lives. We are also the people who, when she was about to study castles, took her to a few castles as day trips.

Our favourite game is memory game too.
If my ds says, " Red car" than I say " Red car with broken window", and daddy says, " Red car with broken window with old lady".... and so on. It's really fun.

Whats wrong with giving them the "adequate" jobs ehich keeps them interested in the subject and learning and enjoying. As long as they also have time to play(lots), eat well sleep well and if they want or willing to do extra/harder learning at home then whats wrong. I'd better give my daughter some challenge at home than leave her thinking maths is boring, nothing to learn, nothing challenge. I want to show her that eith the same subjects maths is very very interesting, its very hard and she could be easily challenged, its just unfortunate that her state primary hasnt got anything to offer her or couple children like her yet. I am sure if I dont challenge her then she wont do anything or soon losing interest or worse cant catch up with many other good kids out there. I will be a fool if I dont help her

Saying so my main issue is I always feel I havent given her enough supports, I envy with staying at home parents or parttimer as they have more time with their children. I always think/feel that children with staying parent are doing better than mine, are more behaved, more matured, well rounded and having loads more fun. Unfortunately, its the luxury that we dont have. So there isnt anything wrong when you have more time with your kids and teach them more, show them better. You should carry on doing it, its one of your advantage compare to children with both parents working. I know many of my friends, taking few months even the whole year unpaid to stay at home coaching their children to make sure they pass 11+, so if you are staying at home then your children are already having much more chances

Greenleave, I assume the parents who says they don't do anything with children but they are years ahead is lucky ones. Even able children need to learn new stuff from somewhere, so if not home, school must be doing great job stretching them. But unlucky ones like me, I have to do it at home, otherwise I'll have a very unhappy child.

I still find it possible to help and give additional work at home even though Dh and I work full time. It's only an extra 15 mins an evening, and then weekends are fun but educational

Fun I think is the key. Is a child more likely to learn that the correlation of how things balance over a pivot for example by doing exercises out a text book, or being given a plank in the garden that they can balance different things off. Fortunately being in Wales we have learning through play to the end of year 2 so much is learnt by 'doing' rather than being sat at a desk. The key )for maths and probably other subjects too) is the understanding behind why something works, not just that it works.

Wow learning through play until lthey are7 is pretty good. Does it work well?

I have a top set very able child. I don't do any extra book like work with her(other than reading) but hopefully do do interesting days out and conversation. Once you can read the library really does take you so many places!

We find in our school it works very well and we have very good results in both foundation phase (early entitlement through to yr2) and end KS2. Foundation phase lessons are set up inside and outside so that children can find an activity to learn the particular topic in a way that suits them. So say if learning clocks then there may be an inside craft activity to make a clock that they then use to tell the time on (to their target level of hour/half hour/5mins etc), or a large set of pipes and rocks outside to make a big clock that they can then take photos of and write the time under the photos. Counting in 1s, 2s, 5s 10s etc is done in the playground with different movements associated with each type of counting e.g. star jumps, or lifting knees up, starting when they join the school at 3 not just good for maths but also co-ordination.
We do notice a dip in performance when pupils hit year 3 and suddenly have to be sat down all day though. I know my elder child (now yr 4) struggled with the transition.

Definitely sound like a great school!

At year 1 my daughter was tired and needed to go to bed at 7.30, we got home at 7pm(left the house manytimes even before she woke up or just managed to say morning) and weekends we hardly ever at home, in the pool Sat and Sunday morning, in the park or doing anything else rather than "learning new maths subject". It gets much easier now, so much as she goes to bed at 9.00, we are ok for now!!!However, had I stayed at home then maybe 20 mins in the morning, 10 mins "chit chat" after school. I feel a pressure of a need for my children to catch up what they miss due to us working not being able to help them as much especially at young age. It gets much easier later on

We used to have many quizzes in the car when she was young? We went to a birthday party and I told her how old the birthday boy was, then I asked her whether she is older or younger, how many months, days(sometimes even went down as hours when she was good with her table. Which I found helped with her mental maths.

Our main challenges are literacy. The problem is I dont know whether she is doing well enough and has reached her potential, whether she has all supports she needs. We are foreigners so we cant teach her anything with English(maths is easy). I could only fill my house with books, all types. Go to library. Subscribe to children news. Asked her to write diary, extend her sentences. Check out what she is reading, my husband reads in parallel with her and we talk about the book(we have kindle, she still had to read paper books and it feels like double the cost if we want to read at the sametime). She is very into reading that she makes/draws posters and stick them everywhere in her room. She has just finished 7books in the complete the chronicle of Narnia and it felt like an amazing adventures we are all been went. Everywhere drawing pics, posters made of cardboards of Peter, Susan, Edmund etc especially Aslan. The thing with not having me at home during the day is she was left to do lots of things as she wished on her own, drawing, crafts, arts, our house is full of them. At the same time I appreciate it as she had chance to develop other skills and has time not thinking, not learning...during the day.

We will need to start thinking about 11+ soon but I am trying to delay it until at least beg of year 5. By then I will need to research further what I could do to support her

Greenleave, I thought your dd has tutor(s), music lessons, sports lessons etc. I'm sure your dd got a lot more learning opportunities, attention, and extra stuff compared to other children, I'm sure.

Yes, extra activities are ok, we are keeping it up and she enjoys them. I think I can manage with the extra activities. My main concern is still English though

Green - see we work also but ours never had bed before 9pm. 9pm-8am seems to work fine for them. So we have 7-9pm every evening and all weekends. We also sometimes work from home with them in afternoons so we can set them something to occupy them an hour whilst we finish our work

www.readtheory.org/ reading
pobble365.com/ writing

And you have ixl for grammar, right?

Artandco: we can hardly work frome home(home isnt fully set up to support work, multiple screens and access to market data). Going to bed at 9.00 is much easier and nicer for us as we have more time with her. She just doesnt need to go bed as early as she isnt tired before 9 yet.

Irvine: my main weakness is still havent allowed her with internet during the week yet. I doubt very much the nanny could control it well, she will be glued her eyes to ...errr you tube???

Greenleave, my ds spends less than 10 mins. doing readtheory and pobble.

Irvine, how do you use pobble please? My cd isn't up to writing a whole story yet? (In fact she can't even write. Sigh)

In fact I just tried read theory with her and she actually couldn't answer any o the questions without massive explanations. Plus I obviously had to read it to her!

Irvine: thank you, will have a look at pobble tonight, will also need to think of a way how to allow her to use internet in a controlled manner when she is with our nanny. For now, I'd prefer she is in the library, doing extra curr activities, read books rather than watching stuffs like...annoying orange or similar on youtube

PrincePondicherry, pobble gives you different picture every day. My ds normally do "Question Time" underneath the photo, writing short sentences.

Is your dd quite young? then just use it as an inspiration for anything? Ask her what she thinks of picture, make up a story, talk about it, etc.

For Readtheory, my ds started off clueless as well. After doing it over year, 5 minutes a day, he made massive improvement.(My ds started end yr1, so if she's still young, try a bit later?)