year 3 homework

[jwpetal]

I hope this is the right section to post. My ds is in year 3 and has been given homework. The brief is to do at least 4 pages to include research and diagrams on healthy eating. Does this seem a bit much for a 7 or 8 year old? I would find it difficult to write a 4 page document on this subject. Putting aside that it is a terribly boring way of teaching, is this a reasonable request for a homework assignment?

I asked my ds if there has been any guidance on how to research and disseminating information or given any websites that are appropriate and this has not been done. they haven't officially covered the subject in school.

I want to approach the teacher for more information and just wanted to get some feedback. thank you.

Do big pictures and label them we used that technique on a year5 piece used up pages easily. I hate these vague “homework” tasks!

Yes, definitely lots of pictures and diagrams. It looks so much better than paper full of text as well.

Yes seems far too much. What size pages?
Definitely lots of pictures and maybe creat a menu/recipe for 1 page.

What's the deadline? It's a bit much for just a weekend but maybe it's an Easter project.

it is an Easter project, which in itself does my head in. Why do teachers do that? It is a holiday and they are shattered. oh well, will get is done and leave it at that.

We didn't get any holiday homework. The MOST we get is 1 page.

They will use this information in class - somproject is getting a head start

No doubt it will be on the wall for 'what they know now' as opposed to 'what we know after'

We had a phase of 'research' homework but only with taking notes. Then at school they would collect and collate what everyone discovered (usually in groups) and create some sort of 'output' e.g. a poster.

It was actually amazing what the children collectively produced. One child brought this little fact in, the other child that picture, the third this snippet of context info, and put together it was quite impressive. Certainly the collated 'learning' went beyond what the teacher would have 'taught'.
But IMO if you're going to set research homework, you have to give clear guidance on how to do research, incl. recommended sources, it has to be clear that parents are expected to help, and you need to help with the trickiest bit: The never-ending aspect of it. There is always another link you can click, and children (and their parents!) find it very hard to determine what the 'take-home-message' is. It is too likely that they'll get overwhelmed in a sea of information and end up learning nothing. (Also the children with no support at home will end up learning very little indeed.)

I much prefer homework that consists of revising/revisiting something that was learned at school, rather than revisiting in school something that has been researched at home. A poster here once described how they had homework that consisted of e.g. making a poster based on stuff they had learned at school. Seems the right way around. Rather than making a poster at school based on stuff they had learned at home.

Think of it as 4 PowerPoint slides

Page 1. Title Page
Page 2 . Contents
Page 3 Why do we need food? Lots of pics
Page 4 Types of food (diagram with explanation of the groups like carbohydrates, proteins etc)
Page 5 Dental Health (label a picture of teeth)
Page 6 A healthy recipe that a y3 could make with a photo
Page 7 Back Cover with blurb

Just to add that homework, whilst set by the teacher, is usually a school policy decided by the senior leadership rather than decided by the teacher. IME some teachers don't want to give homework for various reasons, but have to follow policy.

Lots of puctures and labels; plate of food groups. Bullet points with spaces between each, cut out pictures from magazine or print off internet. Holiday homework is flick and tick or show and tell in my school.