Forgetting everything over the holidays...!

[dairymilkmonster]

Ds1 is 5 and got a little bit of 'optional' homework for the hols. i did some of it in the first week which was fine but tried to do the maths worksheet yesterday. It was just some number work he was doing fine last term - but he seemed to have forgotten it all! His writing was significantly less good than before breaking up as well....it wasn't great in the first place.

Is this normal?

DS is rather at the bottom of the achievement range for everything in his class . I wasn't too concerned as he is in a prep after not settling in a state primary and I noticed immediately that the boys all seemed further ahead than in his old class so i think he is within normal range despite being at then bottom.. Just a minor worry now that forgetting things over the hols will drop him back even further...

Do you think i should just leave it or try and do a bit more with him? We have been doing reading regularly but no regular maths/writing/other stuff unless it comes up in other activities.

It really depends what you think about doing work over holidays.
Writing can be done fun way during holiday, like writing post cards or writing diary.
Maths you can play number games etc.

Personally we do keep doing some work during holidays unless we are away somewhere, since we have so much time. And I think 10~20 minutes a day doesn't spoil the holiday at all.

It's very common to have a slip back, but we try to keep things ticking over to make things easier for DS. In particular he struggles with handwriting and has made massive leaps forward over the previous holidays from just doing 5 minutes a day correctly rather than loads of writing at school but mostly reinforcing bad habits.

Thanks. I think I'm going to do 5-10 mins daily from now on. Learning process for me really as well! We did some writing today, there was some initial resistance but he did get on with it eventually and then we did some letter formation.

If you are doing letter formation and If you have paved area out side, writing with the chalk outside is a fun way to practice. My ds loved doing it, spent ages writing something, and I encouraged and praised him for doing it.
He's done it really fun way by writing it swirly way or really tiny or huge, etc.

ooh, that is a great idea! thanks