7 year old struggling

[lyssie29]

Hi I'm sure it's true of many kids in lockdown but my 7 year old who is in year 3 is really struggling with motivation for her school work. She doesn't get alot of formal work from school maybe 4 or 5 tasks and with some breaks we can get them done by lunchtime. Thats how we started off. I never pressured her but she knew she had to do it and just sat and we worked through it. Then the teacher just said to practice times tables on the app from school and she goes on reading eggs for about 15 minutes but she can do that any time of the day. As time's gone on she hasn't wanted to do it anymore. She gets angry when she gets up in the morning and stamps her feet like a toddler (she wasn't like this before) and begrudgingly she starts doing it but starts being silly. She'll sit with her iPad and keeps saying she can't do it (without even looking at the questions) sometimes she sits and just writes in random things so it looks like she's doing it. Sometimes she will roll around on the sofa. What does everyone else do I'm at my wit's end with it? When she gets to the rolling around stage I'm at my wit's end and trying to stay calm. Today she did 2 questions on one task then gave up. No matter what I said to her she just wasn't having it so I said screw it and she just went on reading eggs and she did some times tables. She has had some behavioural problems through the past year only at home though not at school. Her dad died when was 3 and she has started to realise how much is missing from her life and she gets angry very easily which has been worsened in lockdown. She says she misses him all the time and talks about how she hoped I wasn't going to die too.

I just wanted to pop in and send Sorry to read about your bereavement.

I’m not going to be massively much use at the advise bit I’m afraid!!

Could you try a different approach.. for example do a project on the changes from winter to spring. Go around and take photos of how everything is now.. collect sticks.. and make a collage. Then say you’ll do the same in 3 weeks, 6 weeks time and map the changes.

Another thing my DS school is doing is measuring themselves now and in 6 weeks time.. hair, height and shoes size.

I wonder if non formal learning or thing where she doesn’t really know she is learning could help?

Lastly I found some nice learning folders off Etsy. It was by Hereford Primary. It was about £20 and my DS likes his as the folder as it’s got his name on and the tasks are fun. He’s also got into monopoly after getting it for Xmas and it’s a good game for learning about money!!

Good luck, this is so tough right now x

Just popping by to say you're not alone. My 7 year old is also a bit grumpy and stampy these days when it comes to home learning!

We've started to move away from what the school is sending us and doing our own thing. My DS is loving scrabble at the moment, once we've put a word on the board we discuss if it's a noun, verb or adjective and then we use the word in a sentence. We try and make the sentences a bit silly to keep it lighthearted!

We've also been doing a project. This week he chose to research horses and wrote a bit about them. I bought a horse magazine and he cut out pictures of horses and their equipment to decorate his project.

Maths is the tricky one here. We've started a game where we throw a ball to eachother and recite the times tables. So I say 3 and throw to him, he says 6 and throws back to me etc. And we play shop keeper a lot, we have to 'buy' things from eachother and give the correct change back.

It's really bloody tough and you can only do so much. Try not to be too hard on yourselves and just take each day as it comes. Some days you might do a lot, other days not much at all! Good luck!

Thanks everyone. I will try some games and things. Just her work on the iPad gets marked by the teacher and has to be done by 3.15 every day. Although the teacher didn't say anything on Friday when nothing was done. I might message teacher and see what she says 🙂 she even gets grumpy these days if I ask her to get dressed 🤣

Are you wfh or have you time to do activities with her? If you do I would message her teacher and say she is refusing to engage at all and for the sake of her mental health you will be doing your own thing with her, possibly completing the odd task from school but certainly not most. Most teachers will understand, I know I would. Then do science experiments - Google simple ones, we did soooo many last year that took barely any prep - get her to write stories about things that interest her and don't worry about her spelling and handwriting in them. If she doesnt enjoy that then cartoon strips / story maps just as good. Loads of art and crafty stuff, cbbc has loads of educational programmes on at the moment for a bit of down time thats still valuable. Phonics and maths can all be done through games - 5 minute mum on Instagram has brilliant ideas that can be levelled up for y3 kids easily. History and geography just find something that captures her imagination and learn about that, doesnt have to be exactly what they're doing in school. As long as shes not literally sat in front of a screen all day and is doing something, she will be learning. At 7, play is learning. Good luck I know its not easy