Bambi’s class now, like the older children’s classes in his school, does learning log homework and has been since the start of this year. If you’re like me you may well be saying “What is a learning log?” and “
Bambi’s class now, like the older children’s classes in his school, does learning log homework and has been since the start of this year. If you’re like me you may well be saying “What is a learning log?” and “Is it a good idea for homework?”.
In short the answer to the latter is yes and no. I’m guessing for those who came across this post, while trying to find out what their child’s homework is all about and if it is a good technique for teachers to use, my answer of yes and no is maybe a teensy bit annoying. Sorry. I will however explain to the best of my knowledge about this homework technique and why it is good and bad, though to be honest it is mainly good.
Rather than assign a task and specify the ins and outs of how it is to be complete with a one-size-fits-all attitude, learning logs allow individuality and to accommodate different learning styles, abilities and levels. For example, one consistent feature of Bambi’s learning log homework is English. The teacher has a print-out of some of the common words they have been learning to spell and write that week or phonetic sounds, and encourages the children to learn them at home, and make at least one copy of each of the words or some words that contain the phonetic sound. Now they could simply write them out in their black pencil and have ‘done’ their homework, but the teacher also lists some other ideas they could do and encourages the parents and children to also come up with ideas and then use them in the learning log. For the example of the English common words, she suggests things like writing the words in coloured pencils, maybe a different colour for each word, or use cut-outs from magazines etc to spell the words (note: every time I read that when doing Bambi’s homework with him, I can’t help but have the mental image of mini hostages showing their ransom notes to their teacher). Bambi has been struggling a bit with writing the words as his hands get very tired and he lacks some co-ordination/ fine motor skills (thankfully this was picked up early when he started school and he was taken out of class, along with a few others who were struggling, a couple of times a week for some work on their fine motor skills). With Bambi struggling to write and seeing the way he was beginning to resent homework I came up with some creative ways for him to do homework. I suggest something to Bambi and if he wants to do fine, if not it’s okay, after all this is his learning log and he can do as little to meet the requirements that week or as much as he wants. (That is one of the good and bad things about learning logs – doing a little or a lot. If a child does the best he can but it is just a little that’s great but if he does a little to just meet the requirements of the task but has the capability to do more but just can’t be bothered then that’s where the bad part of this style of homework comes in.)
Some ideas I have came up with for Bambi’s learning log were, using fridge magnets to spell out some words that had the sounds he was working on that week, for example we came up with the word photo for the ‘ph’ sound. I let him set up the magnets on the fridge, I took a photo of the words he made on my iPad then went and printed it off and included it in his learning log for that week. Another idea was when he was asked to make sentences with the common words, he just put all the words he had that week in a one big list. He couldn’t grasp the concept of making a sentence out of those words. I recalled that before going to school Bambi used his imagination. A lot. Bambi could tell such convincing stories others would believe they were real. Once he told his ‘nursery ladies’ (the staff at the nursery/pre-school he went to and where Cinderella still goes) mummy and daddy took Cinderella and me out in the car. (Note: some parts I can’t quite remember but am doing my best to 