Scarecrow Surprise
The objective here was to color boxes with matching letters. The main issue is that it was a completely boring activity. Also, while the worksheet is titled "Scarecrow Surprise", the activity has absolutely nothing to do with scarecrows. AT ALL. RJ even asked while speed-coloring his way through the sheet, "Why is this a surprise for the scarecrow?" I had a difficult time holding myself back at that point, because the first response in my head was, "Funny...I had the same question" followed by, "you should ask your teacher and point out how irrelevant the work was to the scarecrows". Instead I paused for a second and said, "I'm not sure, but maybe they consider each match a surprise?" And don't even get me started on the ambiguous instructions to "color the boxes with matching letters". Is the child supposed to color all the matches the same color? Use different colors for each letter pair? Use all different colors? It's really not clear from the direction alone. Sure, as an adult, I easily determined that we should use a different color for each pair - but what if children were expected to do this on their own? I feel that they should be explicit.
To make this worksheet better, students could be encouraged to build "hay bales" or other farm stuff by putting together matching first letters together. So for example, an H pair would depict pictures of hay, a T pair would have halves of a tractor, etc. It would be a cut and paste instead of coloring activity, but still more engaging, and incorporating more than matching skills alone, since the object halves would start with the same letter sound, aiding phonemic awareness.
An even better option would be to design a worksheet that was more in the style of Word World (the PBS Kids TV Program), where the letters actually build a word (rather than just matching letters to their mate).
And the best option for transforming this worksheet into a learning activity would be to put letters on lego bricks, mix them up, and then have children match them (so practicing the same skill as the worksheet), or build words themselves. The beauty of the legos is that they could be used over and over again for different letter activities too! To make this a tangible homework assignment, parents could take a picture of the matches/words and send that to school. And since not every parent has access to a digital camera and a printer, they could opt to have the child draw their matches to turn in instead, which would also provide writing practice. Along with the lego activity, there could be some sort of context for making the matches as well. Different letter matches could make different parts of some lego structure that all the pairs would complete when put together.
Go, Team, Go!
This one wasn't horrible, but I put it in the category of "busy work". It wasn't challenging, and involved coloring, so I couldn't imagine any parents had a difficult time getting their child to complete it, but yet, it still could have gone a step further to engage the children and teach them more.
My suggestion for designing a new worksheet would be to cut out the bears and paste the letter bears on one side of the field and non-letter bears on the other side to make "teams". One could also even have the number of bears on the paper match the number of players on the team in football. I think this would be great for kids because they'd be learning something about the rules of a sport, which could be interesting to them, while also providing practice discerning letters from other markings, which was the original intention of this worksheet. Also, the suggested activity would help children practice fine motor skills through cutting and pasting as well as coloring.
Letter Tracing/Shape Tracing
URGH! If this isn't already a recurring theme, it soon will be. This worksheet is devoid of all context, making it completely boring. In other words, kids don't want to do it and rush through it, not really trying to be neat and then get angry and frustrated when they have to re-do it. (I know can only really speak about the one kid I observed, but I find this hard to believe that other kids aren't bored by this too.)
If one wants to work on letter formation and other fun fine motor skills, that's awesome. However, I am a firm believer that rote practice is a great way for kids to get bored and discouraged and then it takes longer to get them to focus. If this happens frequently enough, I wouldn't be surprised to have a child who never wants to do their homework! There are better ways to build these skills that are more novel to children, which can maintain their interest for longer, thus providing more practice toward achieving the final goal of having fully developed writing abilities!
One idea is to have children use a wet paintbrush to "erase" letters written in chalk on a Blackboard or Sidewalk. Parents could send in a picture of their kids doing this if a tangible product is necessary. Taking this one step further, children could trace actual words, which would be less boring than just random letters. For even more context, they could trace sentences with some thematic content. Another option, if fine motor control alone is the goal (as opposed to specifically letter writing), would be to trace intricate famous artwork. In this last scenario, they would be building fine motor control, as well as having exposure to famous works of art, which they could learn more about in a theme or in art class.
Homemade Fun
Finally!! Active Learning! This was a sheet with suggestions for home activities, many of which were good. (See, I give positive reviews too.)
Making play dough (or any kind of cooking activity, really) is great for kids as it teaches math reasoning and science concepts such as transformation of substance as a result of a catalyst (usually heat with cooking). I have a better play dough recipe, so I would choose just to use my own recipe rather than the one provided (which I'm sure works just fine, but I still have play dough that I made nearly a year ago and it hasn't dried out or broken down).
Making modeling clay letters is also engaging and exercises fine motor muscles.
Drawing a picture for a friend was a great suggestion because kids like to do this anyway and open-ended drawing is great for fine motor control, creativity, and representation skills. Writing a letter to a friend along with the picture would have been a great addition as well, adding literacy practice and letter formation to the mix.
The last on this sheet was "My Life" which involved talking about past events with the child. This is great as a memory builder and RJ really enjoyed watching old movies of himself as a baby too. To make this into a tangible homework assignment, at the beginning of the school year, teachers could have children, together with their parents create a scrapbook of them and their family with a couple of choice memories, complete with captions written by the child. This would be better writing practice than isolated letters and more engaging for children because they see the final product as something real, rather than just a worksheet of random letters.
So, while I was pleased with these activities being included, I still think that the teachers could do a better job of meeting their other objectives by expanding these and cutting out the rote practice worksheets.
An even better option would be to design a worksheet that was more in the style of Word World (the PBS Kids TV Program), where the letters actually build a word (rather than just matching letters to their mate).
And the best option for transforming this worksheet into a learning activity would be to put letters on lego bricks, mix them up, and then have children match them (so practicing the same skill as the worksheet), or build words themselves. The beauty of the legos is that they could be used over and over again for different letter activities too! To make this a tangible homework assignment, parents could take a picture of the matches/words and send that to school. And since not every parent has access to a digital camera and a printer, they could opt to have the child draw their matches to turn in instead, which would also provide writing practice. Along with the lego activity, there could be some sort of context for making the matches as well. Different letter matches could make different parts of some lego structure that all the pairs would complete when put together.
Go, Team, Go!
My suggestion for designing a new worksheet would be to cut out the bears and paste the letter bears on one side of the field and non-letter bears on the other side to make "teams". One could also even have the number of bears on the paper match the number of players on the team in football. I think this would be great for kids because they'd be learning something about the rules of a sport, which could be interesting to them, while also providing practice discerning letters from other markings, which was the original intention of this worksheet. Also, the suggested activity would help children practice fine motor skills through cutting and pasting as well as coloring.
Letter Tracing/Shape Tracing
URGH! If this isn't already a recurring theme, it soon will be. This worksheet is devoid of all context, making it completely boring. In other words, kids don't want to do it and rush through it, not really trying to be neat and then get angry and frustrated when they have to re-do it. (I know can only really speak about the one kid I observed, but I find this hard to believe that other kids aren't bored by this too.)
If one wants to work on letter formation and other fun fine motor skills, that's awesome. However, I am a firm believer that rote practice is a great way for kids to get bored and discouraged and then it takes longer to get them to focus. If this happens frequently enough, I wouldn't be surprised to have a child who never wants to do their homework! There are better ways to build these skills that are more novel to children, which can maintain their interest for longer, thus providing more practice toward achieving the final goal of having fully developed writing abilities!
One idea is to have children use a wet paintbrush to "erase" letters written in chalk on a Blackboard or Sidewalk. Parents could send in a picture of their kids doing this if a tangible product is necessary. Taking this one step further, children could trace actual words, which would be less boring than just random letters. For even more context, they could trace sentences with some thematic content. Another option, if fine motor control alone is the goal (as opposed to specifically letter writing), would be to trace intricate famous artwork. In this last scenario, they would be building fine motor control, as well as having exposure to famous works of art, which they could learn more about in a theme or in art class.Homemade Fun
Finally!! Active Learning! This was a sheet with suggestions for home activities, many of which were good. (See, I give positive reviews too.)
Making play dough (or any kind of cooking activity, really) is great for kids as it teaches math reasoning and science concepts such as transformation of substance as a result of a catalyst (usually heat with cooking). I have a better play dough recipe, so I would choose just to use my own recipe rather than the one provided (which I'm sure works just fine, but I still have play dough that I made nearly a year ago and it hasn't dried out or broken down).
Making modeling clay letters is also engaging and exercises fine motor muscles.
Drawing a picture for a friend was a great suggestion because kids like to do this anyway and open-ended drawing is great for fine motor control, creativity, and representation skills. Writing a letter to a friend along with the picture would have been a great addition as well, adding literacy practice and letter formation to the mix.
The last on this sheet was "My Life" which involved talking about past events with the child. This is great as a memory builder and RJ really enjoyed watching old movies of himself as a baby too. To make this into a tangible homework assignment, at the beginning of the school year, teachers could have children, together with their parents create a scrapbook of them and their family with a couple of choice memories, complete with captions written by the child. This would be better writing practice than isolated letters and more engaging for children because they see the final product as something real, rather than just a worksheet of random letters.
So, while I was pleased with these activities being included, I still think that the teachers could do a better job of meeting their other objectives by expanding these and cutting out the rote practice worksheets.
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