Is this too hard for a 6yr old

Arriving late to this discussion but I think that is a tricky homework to set unless it has been really well prepared in school. Homework is only supposed to be for the purpose of supporting the learning children have already done in school. For ch of this age I think the style of 'find out at home' or sharing a storybook, which leads to talking to family members and friends, is a better approach. Also feel that only homework that can be done by all ch is fair. Some kids won't have computers or even access to colouring pencils and pape. I know life is not fair but surely it is school's place to try to lessen that and not make it greater!

Is ir something to do with the asessment tests with the teacher wanting to prove her worth by having children attaining standards above those for their age group?

Although I am a supporter of teaching children to read phonically the government has recently brought out reading tests that include a lot of non words like nims and thich to test whether children understand phonics, which, in pilots, a lot of the brighter children end up failing because they expect a word to have meaning and they think words like that are printing mistakes so they try to work out what the word was meant to be and stall at actually pronouncing the letters that are printed on the page.

Annobel Ever since T's arrival, I have written a number of Torben tales. So far, Torben, the wild deer, otter and eagle have been the 'adventurers'...and now we have a newcomer

Greatnan you need to be minister of education. ASAP.

You must dedicate the stories to Torben, your little Viking!

Seventimesfive I'm inspired. I shall begin the Rory tales once I've emptied the washing machine.

Supernana that sounds a great idea! You write so well here the Rory Stories are bound to be a good read!

Annobel and Carol I shall give the matter some serious consideration.
A cheeky robin has been tucking into some biscuits on Rory's plate, and a vole seems to think that the space underneath Rory's shelter is worth investigating.

Yes, that would be a lovely thing to do supernana

super - that strikes me as a great idea and given your talents, you would obviously illustrate the stories as well. Could be another Mog and quite a little money spinner, potentially.

gracesmum dear Ginger I may write a few wee tales about the adventures of Rory - the bloshy cat who came out of the forest and bagged himself a mat.

Teaching is such hard work these days, and teachers seem to be blamed for every ill of society. If you have a class of 30 6-year olds, you will have quite enough marking to do, forms to fill in, lessons to prepare, displays to mount, parents to meet, etc. etc. without giving yourself additional marking through homework.
I have boundless admiration for people teaching in the UK today - it is much easier in France, where the curriculum is rigid and there is much stricter discipline. I think a teacher deserves a salary at least equal to an MP!

Such a wide range of views on my question, its certainly made me think differently about a few things , I thought I was the only one who thought it was daft to give 5/6 yr olds homework every week..

Yes, Nsube, and so innocuous that it hardly counts, which is how it should be. I'm all for getting kids to talk about school stuff, or find out interesting things to share at school. We told my youngest daughter's HT that she wouldn't be doing any set schoolwork-at-home (after the school complained) but that in fact she did lots of self-motivated homework in the form of talking to us about what she was doing at school, drawing pictures, writing stories, etc. End of problem and not another word said.

Agree absolutely, Bagitha. I had to set homework, but my favourite ploy was to set ones which involved asking granny about something or going outside with an adult to find something and be prepared to talk about it. Much more fun and much more useful.

All of which reasons are good ones for not setting homework at all for kids at primary school. It seems to me that many teachers set homework because "it is school policy" regardless of whether it has any educational benefit. They do it because they have to, not (one hopes) because they want to. Daft. And why do schools have to have daft policies? Because of interfering politicians. Tick lists, targets, league tables and all that crap.

I had that one for my son Gracesmum. There were some others too, in the series. One about Kittens "we were only helping Mother, doing all the cleaning tasks".

My daughter was 7 when one of her homework words was 'pelagic'. Now I'm sure some grans will know its meaning immediately, but I'll bet there are lots who won't! I did go into school to ask about this and was told that it had come about because the class was undertaking a topic on fishing. I then tried to establish if the task was to find out the meaning of the word or if they should know that already through classroom investigations. If they had to put it into a sentence were they expected to do that independently or with parental help? I got the answers I needed but registered the fact that I thought the homework was both irrelevant and inappropriate. I wasn't afraid to tackle it because I was teaching at the time. Writing sentences using the 'spelling words' is generally seen as useless and tedious homework exercise as it's patently obvious that most sentences are dictated by parents. Ask the same children to carry out a similar exercise in class and you find that the sentences are far more basic as there is no opportunity for the parent to 'show off'!!

My team of specialist peripatetic teachers used a variety of reading schemes (not Janet and John!) and The Red Pirate series seemed to be the favourite with the boys. Most of the pupils referred for extra reading lessons were boys, but I was never sure whether this was because they were more disruptive and their class teachers just wanted a lesson without them!

Yes this far to hard for a six year old how many mums and dads would know the meaning of the word.
Bring back Janet and John (not the Terry Wogan Janet and John) [

The etymology of collaboration is from the late Latin 'collaboratus' (working together) so whatever context you put that in - war, a project, etc. it still means the same thing.
This kind of homework puts children with less well-educated parents at a disadvantage. When I was teaching, I had to set homework , even for my least able 'remedial' classes, because the Head had only ever taught in a highly academic Christian Brothers' grammar school. I always knew which pupils would bring in carefully researched projects, using words far beyond their own scope - the ones with professional parents. I am not sure what the parents thought they were achieving by this.

How absurd to be giving homework to a 6 year-old! And this homework is ridiculous - so it in school that's what I say!

Not sure Annobel!!
The '2 year old' is obsessed with Noddy. I managed to obtain some quite old, original, non-pc Noddy books in a book emporium recently only about £1.50 each. She loves them I have kept dozens of the girls' books and love reading them to visiting GCs.

Why would a three year old need reading books? There must be plenty of children's books that could be read to her. Talking of the USA, isn't the spelling bee a form of entertainment there? Should we emulate that?

I wish I had kept all our Ladybird books - I think they mught be worth a few bob nowadays -not that I would sell them as I loved them so much. You can get birthday cards based on the covers.....
Does anybody remember Ginger's Adventures?
"Ginger's bedroom (?) was a kennel, in the garden by the wall....."
I remember reading it to middle DD just to be interrupted by wails of "Poor little doggie....!!" She could NOT be consoled.