Any primary school teachers about ?

[shouldistop]

Ds1 is in p1 and gets maths, blending, writing short words and a picture book home each week for homework.
He finds the homework very easy and barely has to think about it, which is obviously great as we get it done really quickly without any arguments etc.
I'm just wondering if very easy work is sent home deliberately so they learn to enjoy homework and they do more difficult things in class?

Examples of homework. I have to read these words out to him without showing him them and he writes them down.

The blending homework is similar short words (but different from the writing homework) and I show them to him and he reads them.

Maths is addition, subtraction, number patterns etc but all numbers under 20.

In P1, homework is more for showing the parents the learning that the children are doing in class and allowing wee bits of extra practise than providing challenge, and after a full day at school, 5 year olds should not be doing any onerous school work.

It is more difficult (and time consuming) to differentiate homework to the extent you do with class learning activities, so it quite often will become a bit of a 'one size fits all'. The same with the picture books - there are families out there who don't have ANY books but really you're better off sharing a story you both enjoy and asking the usual comprehension questions/discussing the book and language as you go.

Homework is for consolidation of learning so it should be doing what they've already learned rather than teaching anything new so they should already have a good understanding of it. What your DC is doing is pretty standard for p1 (in fact some teachers wouldn't even cover numbers up to 20 in p1 and would only do numbers to 10 even if children are capable of going past this, so it's good yours is).

If your son is finding it too easy though I would ask that he gets homework that is a bit harder. If he is very confidently blending and spelling CVC words then they could be moving onto CVCC words. Does he also get sight words home to read and spell?

@thelittlestrhino that makes sense, so learning is differentiated more in class then. Yes, the picture books are awful. We do it as it's homework but we still do our own bedtime stories and he's starting to read some of the smaller words in whichever book he chooses.

@Joojoonuts no sight words yet (I had to Google to see what they were). It's a p2/1 class with children from not yet 5 to almost 7 so probably quite a challenging class to teach. I'm happy to buy resources to do at home if you can point me in the right direction. We get homework on a Monday to hand back on a Friday so nothing over the weekend and he does sometimes ask for it.
We usually do things like reading car registrations or signs when out and about or 'writing' his own picture books or him adding up money at the shops etc but I've no idea if any of that makes a difference. I'm not sure I know much about what a 5yo should be learning

[quote shouldistop]@Joojoonuts no sight words yet (I had to Google to see what they were). It's a p2/1 class with children from not yet 5 to almost 7 so probably quite a challenging class to teach. I'm happy to buy resources to do at home if you can point me in the right direction. We get homework on a Monday to hand back on a Friday so nothing over the weekend and he does sometimes ask for it.
We usually do things like reading car registrations or signs when out and about or 'writing' his own picture books or him adding up money at the shops etc but I've no idea if any of that makes a difference. I'm not sure I know much about what a 5yo should be learning [/quote]
That is all brilliant and DEFINITELY makes a difference! What reading scheme is your school using? I might be able to message you some resources.

The biff, chip and kipper books. They're soo bad and old fashioned.

What you're doing is great.
You're right, my school still uses Biff and Kipper books and I hate them. I teach support for learning and children's actual reading age can be miles off the stage of book that the child is reading on this scheme.
I would try to do things through games. I buy cheap jenga blocks from B&M or home bargains and write sight words on them or CVC or CVCC words. You can write different levels of difficulty on different sides in different colours so as he progresses he can try the harder ones. You can also do the same for number facts to practice them.
I'm assuming he's confident with his addition and subtraction to 20 that he's been given and can count to 20. Can he count forwards and backwards within 20 starting at different numbers? If not I'd practice that with him, you can even play around in the car doing this if you're going somewhere. Then move onto skip counting in 2s and if he's confident in that, again trying it starting with different numbers. You can also practice counting beyond 20 (they will likely already be doing this in class).
If you want to push him on in maths you can get him doing multiplication and division but in simple play contexts (and you don't even need to tell him it's multiplication or division). So you could say "Jack has 4 boxes of toy cars. There are 3 toy cars in each box. How many toy cars does Jack have altogether?" or "Jack has 12 sweets. He shares his sweets between 3 friends so they each get the same amount. How many sweets does each of his friends get?"
Young children can model these kinds of problems out to find the answer and it will begin to develop his understanding of multiplication and division, even before he knows that what he is doing is multiplication or division. If you make the problems about things he actually has around him, so using his own toys that he has there in the problem, it will help him to model it out without him needing to be shown how to do it, so he'll build his own understanding of the process.

@Joojoonuts thanks for answering in such detail!
I love the jenga idea! We'll definitely try cvcc words as I don't know if he can do them, it's not something I'd thought to try.
He's completely confident up to 20 addition and subtraction. He can count to 100 and count in 2s starting at 1 or 2. He can do forwards and backwards to 20. Haven't tried any higher.
He can do some multiplication and division already. He can tell me what 2 2s are or 4 4s or half of 8 etc.
I like the idea of doing it with his toy cars. He seems quite good at just holding numbers in his head eg when it's an addition sum with a 9 in it he "pretends it's a 10 then takes 1 away" in his head. He would definitely enjoy doing number games with his cars though.

My older DC were like your DS, OP. But my DS3 is 6yo and in P1 and still needs lots of support with CVC words and basic maths. It is challenging for him. I suppose there's a whole spectrum of ability in P1 classes.

@HarrisMcCoo yes, there must be a huge range of ability especially as p1s missed quite a lot of nursery time due to Covid.
Ds1's pencil grip is quite loose so his drawing and writing aren't very neat at all. His teacher said his hand muscles could still be developing which apparently can happen up until 7 but i suspect it's because they spent most of the day outside at nursery so weren't doing much drawing and it wasn't something I prioritised at home unfortunately mainly due to working from home during first lockdown and having a newborn during second lockdown. So I feel like that's a gap in his abilities but he seems to be catching up a bit with it now he's been at school a while.