Is this just too hard for a 6yr old?

poppyolivia

Mojisola wrote: »

That's tough on the children who don't have supportive parents willing to spend the time with them.

Those children are already known to the school and get extra help in school time or different homework (well in our school) There is absolutely NO pressure at 6 years old to get your homework done correctly, seeing a child try is good enough, well it is here anyway:)
My daughter came home at 10 years old with some mental word I can't even remember...(there was 10 words that were, well lets just say we had to google 8 of them!lol)...one of them didn't make sense to us so I told her to write 'I don't know what XXXXXX means'....she got 10/10.

poppyolivia

balletshoes wrote: »

oh my goodness you'd hate to have any of your kids at my DD's primary school then - across all classes for the last 2 school years every piece of homework (maths and literacy) is usually in game form, most of it requiring at least 2 players (ie child and parent).

every week for about 3 months my son was taking home 'games' omg the amount of stuff that was missing form them and me freaking out I was going to get the blame for it..I was checking the hoover ever 5 mins!lol...counters, dice bits of jigsaw..........I'd forgotten about that, was a nightmare, give me google and long words anyday!;)

purple.sarah

The basic meaning of collaboration is working together so I think that can be explained to a 6 year old. However it is a bit long and difficult to spell and if the work is regularly too difficult then your daughter should discuss that with the teacher. It doesn't need to be a complaint, just a conversation about her concerns. Also check whether they are expected to do the work all by themselves or whether it is supposed to be a collaboration, with their parents or carers helping them look up words or put them in context.

balletshoes

poppyolivia wrote: »

every week for about 3 months my son was taking home 'games' omg the amount of stuff that was missing form them and me freaking out I was going to get the blame for it..I was checking the hoover ever 5 mins!lol...counters, dice bits of jigsaw..........I'd forgotten about that, was a nightmare, give me google and long words anyday!;)

all the kids at our school get a little ziplock bag at the start of each year, with a pack of playing cards, counters, dice, a small ruler, pencils, etc etc in it. thats their "equipment" for their homework and it lives in their bookbags. the "games" are copied and pasted into their homework books each week.

daska

Gingham_R wrote: »

I understand. We've returned homework undone for similar reasons. If it's distressing it's unhelpful. My very articulate little boy told me at 3 years old that he found trying to write 'frustrating and alarming'. He was desperate to do it but it was just beyond him, then and to a large extent still.

Poor lad, the frustration is a killer isn't it. We can see the effort DS2 puts in to trying to communicate with us and it's obviously very frustrating for him. And I do try to avoid things getting to the distressing stage, whether in communication or homework; at the moment, if I can't get him to comply with the homework the first time it comes out we put it away for later and, if he still won't engage I send it back with whatever scribble he has achieved just to show willing.

poppyolivia

balletshoes wrote: »

all the kids at our school get a little ziplock bag at the start of each year, with a pack of playing cards, counters, dice, a small ruler, pencils, etc etc in it. thats their "equipment" for their homework and it lives in their bookbags. the "games" are copied and pasted into their homework books each week.

that sounds much better...ours were in bags which got given out on a Monday and had to be returned on a Friday...half the jigsaws were chewed!lol...I'd prefer the kids having their own things:)

Mojisola

poppyolivia wrote: »

Those children are already known to the school and get extra help in school time or different homework (well in our school) There is absolutely NO pressure at 6 years old to get your homework done correctly, seeing a child try is good enough, well it is here anyway:)

Absolutely no problem with that - your school's working well and taking individual children's needs into account.

daska

Slightly off topic but I remembered this poem which, for those who like this sort of thing, concentrates on the vagaries of English spelling and pronunciation. What child is going to hear vitl and spell it victual?

The Chaos

Charivarius (G. Nolst Trenit!)

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, !!!, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Gingham_R

meeps wrote: »

asked my just 8 year old, otherwise known as the spelling machine, how to spell it, and he got calaberation - not a bad try, one for our word learning wall then..

I wonder if your son might be interested in etymology. Knowing where the word comes from and what it used to mean can be really interesting as well as helping with spelling.

Alikay

My kids often got weird words to put into sentences: Usually something like a noun when the word was only ever used in its verb or adjective form or vice-versa (retribute being one I remember). In this case I'd let them look it up in a dictionary and present the sentence as a definition: Something along the lines of "retribute means to give something back in return".

DS1 (a man of few words) always managed to bang out his "sentences" homework in 5 minutes flat, brevity being his way. We still chuckle about one of his classics "Old people groan":D