Do your kids use pencils at school K-2?

[Anonymous]

Our Montessori school has lots of writing with pencils. No Chromebooks. Only a tiny amount of screen time there; screen time is entirely during their once a week typing class.

(All of our DC have learned not only handwriting there, but also how to erase mistakes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Math seems mostly on the iPad, unfortunately, but there are definitely still written worksheets for math and ELA and additional written ELA assignments. (1st and 4th graders at DCPS)

How often do you see worksheets? Maybe 2nd grade is still too early to be seeing many worksheets at home? I know they do some iPad exercises for ELA because DS tells be about it, but I don’t see any of it. For math I did see a couple of 2 page worksheets per month.

We got written worksheets sent home almost daily in 1st grade (MCPS). It was great to see the writing (and DS handwriting changed over the year). They do also spend a lot of time on Chromebooks unfortunately.

I agree it's valuable both for fine motor / handwriting and for learning.

[Anonymous]

Public school for K-1 (and a top school), way too much time on the iPad,.imo. Teacher would comment on poor handwriting and when I asked how she expected handwriting to improve if much of the day was spent on the iPads, she just shrugged.

Switched to private for 2nd with extremely limited technology usage. Almost everything was written and kids had to re-do work if it was sloppy. Handwriting improved dramatically because of the constant opportunities to practice.

I only wish we made the decision to go private starting in kindergarten. But we were zoned for one of the top elementary schools in the state, why on earth would be pay for private?

[Anonymous]

MCPS here. My 2nd grade kid said they didn’t do much on the iPads except for testing (of which there is a ton) and typing practice (somewhat related to the testing.). So yes tons of “pencil time.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You aren’t going to find any copying these days in public schools. They consider it a waste of time.

That's a shame. I spent a lot of time copying dictionary definitions in 4th grade and really expanded my vocabulary that way.

I did too but as a teacher, if an admin saw me give this to a student, they wouldn’t be happy. Total busywork.

[Anonymous]

We worked on remediating and supplementing for a while and then gave up and switched to a zero tech private.

[Anonymous]

Schools Are Banning Phones. What About Laptops?

Computers in class might actually hurt students.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2025/03/25/schools-are-banning-phones-what-about-laptops/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Catholic school here--our grade school made a deliberate choice to have no technology use in the lower grades, and very limited tech use in the upper grades. Everything is pencil on paper. We're also doing a pledge not to give the students phones or social media at home. I'm so happy that it's still possible to find a place like this.

What school is this? It sounds wonderful

[Anonymous]

Midwest public school. Exclusively writing with pencil and paper. Around 3rd they start writing occasionally on iPad, like if they are doing a power point presentation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd say half the work is written, half on chromebook.

I wish we could opt out of the chrome book. My kids never had much screen time prior to it.

Why can’t we opt-out?!?!?!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You aren’t going to find any copying these days in public schools. They consider it a waste of time.

That's a shame. I spent a lot of time copying dictionary definitions in 4th grade and really expanded my vocabulary that way.

I did too but as a teacher, if an admin saw me give this to a student, they wouldn’t be happy. Total busywork.

I was marked down on an observation years ago because I made the students copy a few vocabulary words in their notebook instead of printing out my slides for them. Ridiculous. God forbid they write a few words.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Entirely 100% teacher dependent in public. My 3 kids had 9 different experiences between them in terms of tech use and how much paper work was done in K-2. They all had the same first grade teacher but they had her in various times related to Covid (before, during, and after), which impacted how much paper work that teacher assigned. Different teachers for K & 2.

9 different experiences? That is wild. I assumed teacher specific differences were more prevalent in privates. I know public follow a specific curriculum by district.

PP here. We're FCPS. They have standards that are all the same, but after that it's the wild wild west of Teachers Pay Teachers slides/worksheets. Benchmark Advanced for LA was standardized, but that's new this year.

[Anonymous]

We chose a catholic school (we are not catholic) because they have almost zero technology in the classroom compared to our local public, which gives laptops to kindergarteners.

[Anonymous]

Anne Arundel County Schools stopped providing chromebooks for the 2025-26 school year, with the exception of 2 virtual instruction days in lieu of snow days where you could check one out. Almost all assignments are back to pencil/pen and paper. What a relief. My kids had virtual school for 1st and 2nd grade and spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to type when they should have been learning how to write. I'm so glad for this change away from technology (and struggling with technology).

[Anonymous]

My soon-to-be third grader was doing worksheets all the time for math. He had workbooks for math too. His teachers made him write a fable by hand and then bound all the kids stories in a book. He had to read 20 minutes per night and write a summary of what he read M-Th and then turn in the summaries on Friday.

He is/was more advanced in math so when he completed the assigned work he was able to use the ipad.

This is in DCPS.