excessive school projects at the same time

My son is in fourth grade too. He has one project at a time. He had a book report due (presentation) and then the same week they got the assignment for the science project (which was due today). I am waiting for the big social studies project on Florida to come home—I’m dreading it and we are just doing one project at a time.

So, yes, I think you have a right to be grumpy. In my view, you shouldn’t have to deal with multiple projects until middle school.

beth

Are they being given by the same teacher? Sometimes when they are changing classes, the right hand doesnt know what the left is doing and it is helpful to gently inform them.

I have thought about having something to limit this problem put in my sons IEP.

We had a 3 wk intercession(year round school)and he came home with 2 lengthy 5th grade level books to read and write a detailed report on. My son reads almost 2 grades behind and I would have liked to change the books to something more appropriate but this came home the last day of school. We had just finished the science project and another book report and….something I cant even remember. We ended up doing audio tapes and a rented movie to get through it(which was ok but not always an option)

I have a ‘transition to middle school’ meeting next week with both special ed depts and will have to think about this more before then

Any ideas what would be good phrasing?

I always feel this question is an example of “Be careful what you wish for, because you may get it.”
Teachers who just work through a text book and just evaluate by testing the material they have taught nowadays get constant grief for being so fuddy-duddy and uncreative and not looking at all the kid’s other skills. Then there are all the parents who say their kid just doesn’t test well, but is so able in other ways. So…

Our school ‘does not believe in projects, since anything done at home reflects the parent’s work, not the child’s”!!!
Couldn’t there be a happy medium??? Oh, well, asking for ‘sense’ would be really silly, wouldn’t it?? Feast or famine, it seems!

Although my son’s in 3rd grade and has an “easy” teacher this year (not easy for my son!), I can understand how frustrating that must be. I’m DREADING 4th grade!!!!

I agree with you that our kids (and even non-LD kids) shouldn’t be overloaded with multiple assignments (at least until 6th grade). And yet, in our house we just plug away at whatever the teacher throws at us…doing the best we can. And if it gets too late, my son’s exhausted , and he still has work to do, there have been a few times I’ve told him…just guess the answers! At this point you have to finish. Sometimes this is the best even if it’s not good enough.

When necessary (and available), I always get books on tape and videos from the library to help my son learn information for specific assignments. We also will read together (I read a page, he reads a page…otherwise he’d never get through a lot of these books!) And, when it gets down to the wire and we’re really pressed for time I may cut down how much he reads and increase the amount I read. I’m always trying to find good ways to “get the most information into my son” in an effective and efficient way so that he can juggle assignments, extracurricular activites, etc… as much as possible.

I know homework and projects can cause some frustrations. It has been my 5th graders experience that even though more time must be devoted, harder work, and reseach for projects, in the end he actually learns the material.

I do my best to help him make the project interesting. He has gotten now to understand how to begin a project, how to research in the encylopedia and other books.

I would contact your principal and special education teacher about scheduling numerous projects at a time. I work and have a third grade son in my building, and find that schedules need to be worked and reworked in order to accomodate study groups, tests, etc.,

I would reccommend expressing your concerns with the special ed teacher they can do some of the project in class or use LRE aide time to strengthen the project without stress. My 6th grade LD son is working on a world report and he has a good enough relationship with his teacher to call her the night before and ask for help. I am proud that he sees his difficulties and knows where to turn for help.

Have your child ask for help if you do not feel comfortable. We are always trying to help our students and maybe the teacher doesn’t know that this is a concern.

Hope this helps good luck…..

I think modern education could be very much improved if the ‘projects’ were taken out of it. More harm has been in the good name of projects…

Some years back there was a cry for greater creativity in teaching, and I think the mania for projects came out of it. I swear I did none when I was a child and I swear my own two children did nothing but.

As a teacher, I see though that this could be solved if teachers would only coordinate their assignments. It is defeating to learning to do more than one project at a time. When there are several projects going on, students end up skimming the surface of the topic just to get the project done. And heaven forbid if a project is turned in late…

In short, I agree with you but projects are now one of the sacred cows of school and most of my colleagues would not.

At my school, there is no attempt made by the faculty to gauge what everybody else is doing in terms of assignments, projects, due dates. What would be wrong with coordination of the projects so that a student is not doing several at the same time?

One time I was teaching math in a school where the school board had an official policy that every report card *must* be based on *at least* six evaluations. Sounds like a fair idea, not to have everyhting stand or fall on one test, no? They gave four semester reports and four interim reports, for a total of eight, or one report every 4 1/2 weeks. That means six evaluations in 4 1/2 weeks. AND, in the high school, there was a weird rotating schedule in which each class met four days out of six. This meant six evaluations had to be produced in sixteen class meetings. Of course the students demanded “review” (ie they wanted the answers pre-fed to them) before any tests, and of course you have to go over the test for any difficulties afterwards, so a test can eat up three days — now, how do you fit six times three into sixteen class meetings? Well, some math teachers did just that, including the department head, and did absolutely nothing but test — feed the answers on day 1, hand out the paper on day 2, go over the answers on day 3, feed the answers to next topic on day 4 … well, as you may expect, the math level of the school was very low, and the students knew how to do nothing but short-term cram answers and then dump the memory buffers to make space for the next cram. Teachers in other subjects handed out assignments and projects all the time to keep up with this excessive requirement.

In another school, in a well-intentioned effort to avoid kids having tests and such every day, each subject was assigned two official days on which tests were allowed, and you could not give any tests on any other days. English had Monday and Thursday, History had Tuesday and Thursday, Languages had Monday and Wednesday, Science had Tuesday and Friday, and Math had Wednesday and Friday. Sounds sensible, to reduce the load, right? Well, I suggest that *you* try to get sixteen-year-olds in high school to take a serious pre-calculus test in the last period on Friday afternoon! Not to mention that this was a school that had a number of other discipline and educational problems; even getting them into any class in the last period was an almost unmanageable feat.

My point here is that, before you make any more rules and regulations and programs, everyone needs to think things through. Schools and teachers may seem to be making a lot of demands on kids, but it *is* their job to push kids to succeed! And they *are* working under a vast number of requirements that have to be met; often those projects are *mandated* by the district or even the state, or in the case of AP classes even nationally.

As I stated in my origianal post, I see the benefit of the projects, especially the indepth state report and also the endangered animal. My gripe is with the timing of the projects. The state report could have been started in January, and then the endangered animal project started after the turn in date of the state project. Also, there is a book report due every month, which is fine…we expect it; but, parents were told that there wouldn’t be a book report due during the time of state report project because it (the project) is so indepth. Also, while the projects are going on, a little reduction in the homework department would be nice. Yesterday, thinking that my child was extremely behind in one, I inquired as to how many projects had been completed. The answer was “none - but the ones that will be completed first are from the children that are skipping half of their recess time to work on the project”. I know there are so many hours in a day that is why I am upset that two projects and another book report are all due before school is out and they are all going on at the same time. Why weren’t they spaced out?!? Here school is out the Friday before Memorial Day.

The monthly book reports have helped my son with his writing and I have been able to see the growth first hand so I actually have grown to appreciate them.

But I too would like to see the standard load drop when its science fair time.

And, while I DO sympathize with the poorly thought out requirements administration dumps on teachers, I also know that many teachers procrastinate. So if 6 grades are required for an 8 wk grading period, 4 of them will occur in the last 2 weeks(or last 1 week). It was a standard joke among middle school parents-“last week of the grading period-get ready for test/paper/project mania!”

It was an annoyance with my two non-LD kids, but its a spirtbuster with my LD son!

While my state has standards, those standards do not break down to mandating defined projects. And AP presents a test at the end. It does not regulate how the class in preparation for that test is taught.

No one is suggesting that more rules and regs be established. I’m suggesting that teachers coordinate with each other when projects are assigned and due - something we don’t do at all in my school. We assign work unaware of what’s going on in other classes.

How several projects going on at the same time is ‘pushing kids to succeed” baffles me. Assigning multiple projects is pushing children to succeed? What definition of success are we using? The more work one has at the same time, the less likely one will be successful with it. Something falls from the plate or gets half-done as we cut the corners we must to get it all done.

That statement suggests that the assignment of several projects all at once is an intentional thing and that a conscious decision has been made to assign all the projects at once and that doing that will somehow help children. That may be the case in your school but it’s certainly not in mine.