When my son was in grade one at six years old, he was sent home with a mundane, repetitive worksheet for homework.
In looking at it, I surmised it was practice for winter French vocabulary as well as colours. One page would say colour the foulard (scarf) jaune (yellow). The next page would say to colour des bottes (boots) violet (purple). And on and on.
My son very quickly grew bored of this (understandably so), but he wanted to get it over with. So when the foulard was to be jaune, he scribbled some yellow on that foulard and moved on to the next page, and so on.
He was six and he was demonstrating his understanding of the vocabulary presented. He completed the task as requested. I saw nothing wrong with that.
Well the teacher took him to task, saying that it wasn’t “his best work”. Of course it wasn’t, the exercise was boring AF. If you want someone’s best, you have to give them something to work with. Something better than some BS worksheet you printed off the Internet to be sure.
If you want students to put in their best effort, give them your best first. And don’t be sending home repetitive, boring worksheets for six year olds to do as homework in the first place. That’s just ridiculous.
Making a six year old child feel bad for not “giving their all” when you clearly didn’t is emotionally manipulative and hypocritical.
If you want children to practice winter vocabulary, have them interact with the actual items. Put on your boots and scarf. Talk about their colours, their fabrics, what they’re used for. Go outside and interact with the world and with the students. That is how they will learn, not from some lazy-ass worksheet.
If you want students to put in their best effort, give them your best first.
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