does this seem like difficult homework for a 5 year old

[chkpea]

does this seem like difficult homework for a 5 year old?

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He brought this home yesterday. I know that he has been doing similar activities at school - and the comments on them have been "instructions repeated several times, does not retain instructions..." So there is a picture and an attached sheet of instructions for the parent to read. He is to listen to each instruction and then complete it. The first instruction is Draw three orange jack o lanterns on tip of the fence. Make two happy and one sad. There are 14 more instructions. We started to do it and he was frustrated from the get go. I am going in on Monday to talk to the teacher about how things are going and will talk to her more about these sheets. Any thoughts on the assignment?

[straighthaircurly]

The only homework my 5yo has is to bring home a book to share each night, read it with us, and record it on a sheet. 14+ steps for instructions seems tedious and pointless. What was the educational goal of the homework? Could you tell?

I school they might have something like 1) color the sheet, make the pairs match, 2) cut on the dotted line 3) Here are the (simple) rules to the game you just made, play it with a person at your table.

I can think of 1 "in school" project he brought home that maybe had 6 steps.

[cosmos]

My thought is that developmentally, many 5 year olds need concrete manipulatives to get their hands on and do not process abstract verbal instructions easily. It would be great if everyone mastered following verbal directions at age 5, but sorry- that isn't realistic.

What is that called? multiple learning styles I think.

[IlluminatedAttic]

While I don't believe that the one example given is beyond the developmental scope of the average five year old, I totally agree that a set of 14 such instructions is tedious and pointless. Such a long list must become overwhelming and your ds is probably reacting to that with anxiety which then prevents him from being able to focus on each item, creating a downward spiral. I also agree that curriculum should be more focused on manipulatives and exploration. While I understand that learning to follow a set of instructions is important in a school environment, there seems to be a whole lot of better ways to practice. And really, at what point in his educational future will he need to execute 14 verbal instructions to complete a project? Advanced math projects and science labs have written instructions. Sounds like a complete waste of time to me.

[octobermom]

YEs and no.. My DD occasionally brings home multitask lists like this but there just activites we can practice with at home I'm jst sosposed to intial that we tried shes not graded on how much we did. Some times its say 8 thigns with paper and a few crayons sometimes its a list of say 12 things like touch your head, hop on one foot, touch your nose and tell me your age.. We have the week to " complete it" and we jsut intial what step they got lost if at any. DD thinks they are fun (mostly)
She does have homework 4 days a week it takes her about 5-10 mintues to complete it.

Deanna

[moonshoes]

Honestly, it is completely useless and ridiculous busy-work. Why in the world does a 5 year old need homework? And more to the point, as a previous poster noted, a 14 point list of instructions is insane for anybody, let alone a 5 year old.

[kathymuggle]

It sounds like a poorly picked project to me. 14 steps is tedious. 3-5 would have been more appropriate.

Kathy

[mistymama]

That seems like way too many steps.

On occasion ds will something similar at school. But it's usually like color the pumpkins, cut them out on the dotted lines and glue them to your paper according to if their face is happy or sad. So like 3 steps.

My aunt who taught kindy for 30 years and has her masters in early childhood HATES worksheets and gets mad when I tell her ds did one. She taught for the dept of defense those 30 years and they were not allowed to use worksheets. I forget exactly why, but it was something about it being better for children to draw their own pictures, using their imagination on a blank paper. Makes sense.

Anyway, 14 steps is way too many at age 5, IMO. And homework? No way. They encourage us to read with our children, but we already do that and ds likes to sit in his room and read as well. I would most certainly talk with his teacher!!

[meemee]

does he have to do it in one day.

my dd got multiple sheets of homework on monday that required multiple instructions. she had to turn them in on friday. so that was reasonable amount according to my estimation. because they were varied tasks and over 4 days.

for one day that is way toooo much.

of course what is the point in even having homework which is usually just worksheets at that age totally beats me.

[annethcz]

To me, that sounds like a sheet from Developing the Early Learner.

http://www.amazon.com/Developing-Ear...5751144&sr=8-1

These type of exercises aren't really busywork, they're exercises intended to help kids with their perceptual development. It does sound like it was above your child's interest level, and 14 steps does seem like too much.

[MattBronsil]

Originally Posted by annethcz

To me, that sounds like a sheet from Developing the Early Learner.

http://www.amazon.com/Developing-Ear...5751144&sr=8-1

These type of exercises aren't really busywork, they're exercises intended to help kids with their perceptual development. It does sound like it was above your child's interest level, and 14 steps does seem like too much.

ANY worksheet that claims to help a child with perceptual development is not giving itself an accurate description of what the worksheet is. Worksheets are busy work produced by teachers (or printed out by teachers) who are too lazy or uncreative to be effective.

Using some worksheets that are optional in the classroom seems fine to me. Using some worksheets to go along with certain materials (like if the child is doing the division board, I'll have paper with division problems on it) is OK. Worksheets sent home with pointless coloring tasks serves no purpose other than to say to the parent, "See...we're sending home worksheets. We ARE teaching your child."

In case you can't tell, I'm very opposed to this worksheet.

[KinderKim]

Homework

I teach K. I send home a small book to read nightly. The kids have to do an activity with the book once a week. We also practice sight words by doing different activities. I rarely send home work sheets. Even in math I try to find hands on concrete activities. I always tell the parents if the work takes longer than five - 10 minutes to please let me know. The kids work really hard at school and homework shouldn't take the whole night.

Kim

[oceanbaby]

My 7yo would hate that assignment. I don't know that it's too hard, but it certainly sounds too ridiculous. They follow directions all day long, why would you need to do a worksheet about it?

[sofiabugmom]

Agreeing with PP's. That's way too much for a five-year-old. Heck, I'm thirty-(cough) years old and I'd get bored and irritable if asked to do all that.

[mommy68]

Originally Posted by kathymuggle

It sounds like a poorly picked project to me. 14 steps is tedious. 3-5 would have been more appropriate.

agree

[octobermom]

Wow I'm a bit suprised at the answers, I can agree its may be boring and useless LOL but I'm suprised people consider 14 steps broken down tedious. Mines in Kindergarden and can deffienty follow a broken down 14 step process and I diffiently wouldn't consider her advanced.. hum intresting..

Deanna

[cyncyn]

My dd brings home 8 pages of homework every friday and it is due back the next friday. Some weeks she is more into it than others, and will excitedly look to see if there is a word search or dot to dot. This past week she didn't finish the packet. There was a re-draw this picture using a grid and it was pretty hard. The silly thing is that she can draw a perfectly recognizable cat, but found that replicating the 36 little boxes too tedious (drawing her own cat should have been an option ). I do think it is better to draw your own pictures, but I can see how worksheets can be useful. During the week dd does about 10 color/cut/paste picture or letter pattern pages. She brings home a short book to read about 4 nights a week but this is from the first grade reading program. I am surprised by the amount of work she does each week. She goes to our local neighborhood public school and most of the kindergarteners in our district have some homework from what I have heard. I have heard that several charter and alternative schools in our city do not give any kindergarten homework. I just try not to pressure her about it, and she usually does about 10 minutes a night to have it done for the week. I think it is ok to leave it unfinished. Learning should be fun, right?

[Sk8ermaiden]

I did those in Pre-K and Kindy. I absolutely loved them.