homework

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Home : 2003 : January : 12

homework
By bayleigh

First of all, I give homework only where it is necessary. I don't give it every night just to be giving it. Homework needs to be a reinforcement or practice of the day's work. It should be short and to the point (not 50
math problems!) There are some things they do nightly like read 15 min., study facts 7-10 min.,study for Fri. tests. All other subjects are short and to the point and not even every night. The most amount of h.w. takes about 40 min. (NOT HOURS and HOURS). Some nights it is less.
My students are elementary (3rd graders). They have an agenda to write their assignments in. They are

required to have their parent sign it every night. It is checked on Friday. If students do not have h.w. then I write a note to the parent in the agenda. (Communication is the key.) If there is no signature the next day, it is obvious that the parent is not seeing this, then a phone call is in order. We work on a checkmark system. A certain amount of checkmarks and they serve time on Fun Friday. There time to serve STARTS after the homework is completed. (for example.....3 checkmarks is 15 min. AFTER the work is completed). If it is not finished in there, then they are issued after school detention on another day.

On the positive side, I have the Homeworkopoly board that we play every Friday for those that had h.w. all week. They LOVE this. This is more of a motiviator than a really low grade. I only have one or two each week that don't get to play and usually it is not the same ones. At first, I did have one boy who didn't do any work so he didn't do anything fun. I have to say, that he saw what all he was missing and decided to do better and he sure has--knock on wood!

I am sorry that you are required to have h.w. in every subject every night. Maybe you could reassess what you are giving as h.w. and choose something that would get the job done but not take a long time. When kids leave they are tired and they do need to spend time with their family and doing fun things. They shouldn't be spending hours doing h.w. Yes, I believe they should have h.w. when necessary to reinforce what they have learned, but something that wouldn't require that much time. Maybe it could not just be pencil and paper activities. Maybe it is something they have to list that they find around their home, watch the news for something in particular, bring in something from home that pertains to your lesson, looking in their neighborhood for info, etc. My kids love this. I know my child really gets into this type of hands-on thing! He is much more eager to come home and get started on it instead of those 50 two and three step math problems!

I hope this has helped some.