Monday Motivation - Homework

So this week's Monday Motivation is all about homework.

First, let me say... I am NOT a huge advocate for homework. 

As a parent, I hate it! (and my kids are only in K and 2nd grade - I can't wait until the later years lol)

as a teacher, I hate grading it... and I never even know how much of the work the kids actually did.

BUT, I do see the value in homework for the sake of the parents are able to see what their kids are struggling in. 

SO let me show you what I do for homework.

Since everyone's schedules are different.... homelife is different, I do a monthly homework folder.

These are my folders from when I taught first...

I staple together 4 reading and 4 math activities (one for each week of the month)

Inside the folder, I have 4 reading passages with comprehension questions and on the back, there's a phonics or grammar component.  

I put one of these in there for each week of the month (I try to match my themes for the week).   These are Jodi's Fluency passages. I love them. I use them in class, too. There are so many to choose from, you can use them all over!

For 2nd grade, I'm going to use her Reading Comprehension Notebook for 2nd grade. 

And for math, I send home the Evan Moore Daily Math pages.... I'm going to do this in 2nd grade too, but just their 2nd grade version.

Again, I do 4 "week" pages, 1 page for each week.  I don't send home nightly homework reinforcing what I taught in math that day, because honestly.... I don't really know how that day's math lesson is going to go. If they really don't end up getting it, or sailing through it (we can all wish for that, right!?), then I might need to change up my math plans a bit.  Now, these pages sometimes have questions that the student and/or parent might not get... sometimes I tell them to "cross it off" and other times we work through it as a class.

They can turn it in whenever they like throughout the month. I just mark it in the book that they turned it in. In fact, I'd rather they turn it in throughout the month so I don't get a whole bunch at the end of the month. lol 

For Spelling, I toggle between these fun Tic-Tac-Toe boards I found from Sailing Into First and the spelling homework found in my Spelling Packets.

They put that paper in a page protector in their binder, and keep it there for 2 weeks and then I switch to the other version.

If you'd like a the Homework Cover letters, you can download them HERE for free!

I also created different ones for my 2nd grade ones (the other ones are so cute for K and 1st grade, but I felt like 2nd grade might need a little bit more grown up feel??)

 

You can grab those HERE.

As far as reading?? Yes. I do want my kids to read books. We send home leveled books in their book baggies. But I don't require them keep reading logs, especially in 1st grade. I just want them to learn to read... and love to read. I don't want work to always be associated with reading. I want them to learn to love reading. Plus, as a parent, I'm really bad at signing things on a nightly basis. I'm not even going to lie about that. lol.

 When I taught 2nd and 3rd, I had them do reading logs a little different. I tied it to a skill of some sort...

You can see more about that in THIS POST. 

So, what do you do for your homework?? What do you do that you just love??