More pages of work than is needed for the average child to "get it". Usually designed to keep a classroom of children busy while the teacher is doing something else. OTOH, some children need the extra work to "get it" or save it for review before a test.
I think busywork will vary by child. Whatever work you make a child do just to say they did it/something that has no value for the child... We use coloring sheets related to things we're are reading about to keep little hands busy and minds focused on the read aloud or audio book. It's used a fun reinforcement. But some kids HATE to color, and I think it would be busywork for them. Many time math curriculum will have lots of worksheets for each topic. If you require your child to do EVERY worksheets just because they are int eh curriculum even though your child has a solid understanding of the concept after 2 worksheets, that's busywork. If your kids NEEDS 8 worksheets on the concept to demonstrate a solid understanding of the concept, it's not busywork. For an auditory learner, a hands on project might be busywork, but for a tactile learner it wouldn't be. Some people consider fun "non-educational" arts and crafts busywork, but we LOVE arts and crafts here, so we consider them fun and a chance to make memories (I often times make my own elementary school craft right along side my 2 boys LOL)
I'm going to agree with JosieB... it really depends on the child. For us, it means doing anything that has already been mastered and/or doing the same assignment in several different ways when just one or two ways would suffice for that child's learning style.
Oh, I should add, I have perfectionist kid who gets very upset when he doesn't get a new concept quickly. Sometimes we have to step back and do some 'busywork' on a previous topic he has mastered to boost his self-confidence. While there isn't much educational value in that (other than the sake of pure review, which is sometimes helpful, sometime pure busywork) but if it gives him the confidence to overcome the hump of the next lesson, I think it's well worth it.
I'm pretty much right in line with Josie. Andy work other than what is teaching or cementing a concept for the child. My kids only do as much of their math pages as they need to stop getting the answers wrong. If the page has 30 long division problems and she gets 5 right then she is done with that page.
I consider anything more than what they need to understand the concept busy work. I have had a kid understand math with just going over it and a few problems and I have had to use every last worksheet for our curriculum and go hunting for more on the internet for other topics. I also agree about the pp that stated teaching several ways to do something when the child has already mastered the concept using one way. Especially in the lower years of math, I find it tedious to teach 15 ways to do addition over and over and confusing for the child. I get if you are in a classroom that one way may click with one child over another but at the house I teach it and if it clicks that way we ignore the 15 dozen ways of doing it. I really consider busywork anything that I have the kids work on to just mark time while I am working with the other kids. I have used worksheets and projects to keep one busy while I taught the other kids. It can have it's usefulness sometimes if you have multiple kids and need to keep one on track while you work with another.
But, is busy work all bad? ... Some days I hunt for busy work. Today my boys only wanted to play rough, noisy pretend play. Ugh... They just wouldn't be redirected to more productive play, and kept hurting each other. That's when I start looking for extra chores for them and busy work tasks! Today both older boys got a hands on lesson on how to scrub down a toilet. (one did the upstairs and one the downstairs, while I talked them through it). They also both did EVERY SINGLE math question, even though most days I would have just picked some of the questions on those pages. We needed to keep those hands busy. But I do try to debrief the day later and explain to them that if they behave more appropriately there will be fewer chores and busy work pages!! On another note, I do wonder sometimes if I should add some busy work just to extend the school day. If my kids actually work diligently, they can be done their school work in three hours. But I usually lean towards encouraging productive hobbies like art, lego, story writing and nature study...
I agree with JosieB. If what the child is doing doesn't provide much educational value then I consider that busy work. Really, isn't busy work what happens when the teacher has failed to plan properly and time must be "filled"? A little more prep time on the teachers part can eliminate most need for 'busy work'.
I see busy work, in a public school setting as stuff for the children who have already mastered the subject to keep them busy, while the other children who have not mastered it continue to learn. I don't think it is because the Teacher isn't prepared, more that they have to teach to 20+ different students who all need something different, so they have to teach to the lowest level, which means all the kids do all the work.
