I send home a newsletter to parents each and every month. This is the homework portion of the newsletter I sent home last week for the month of November.
Homework is an important part of your child’s learning. It is expected that Grade 3 students do at least 20 minutes of homework per night.
Below, I have listed some ideas of things that you can be doing at home to help promote learning. Whatever you choose to do for homework that night, please write it down in your child’s planner and initial that your child did the work.
I check the planners Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday each week. I don’t expect homework to be done on the weekends. I think this is a reasonable expectation. If your child’s planner is signed and you have written down what homework was completed, I place a sticker on a homework chart beside your student’s name for that day.
So far your child has completed homework ____ out of the 25 times I have checked this year. We will be starting a new sticker chart this week. Please do your best to earn more stickers in the next 25 homework checks. Thank you.
If you have Internet access at home, you can check this website for more great homework ideas
http://www.teachersnetwork.org/dcs/homeworkhotline/intro/directory.htm
or you can check our class blog for some ideas as well.
There are some great workbooks that you can purchase to get some extra practice in reading, math, and science. You can even find some at the dollar store. I have found quite a few good resources at dollar stores.
You could also buy a blank notebook for your child to write stories or to journal in. Students become better writers by writing daily. It is also nice to have all the writing your child does in one book. It gives them something to look back at and be proud of.
Every Thursday we have a one-minute test on the times tables. Please practise the number facts so that you will be ready for the test. We started with zeros last week. Remember that any number times zero equals zero.
3 x 0 means that you have three groups of nothing so 3 x 0 = 0.
If your child passed the zero test, he or she will move on to the ones this week. Remember that any number times one will remain the same.
3 x 1 means that you have three groups of 1 so 3 x 1 = 3.
Any student who fails the short weekly test, will repeat it the following week.
I will send these tests home in the planners on Fridays so you will be able to track how your child has done.
The activities below are ones that could be done on a daily basis and require little in the way of materials.
1) Read for twenty minutes
2) Write a paragraph about your day.
3) Write a poem or a story
4) Have your parent write down some math questions for you to solve (addition, subtraction, or multiplication) or print off a math sheet from http://math-drills.com
5) Try to add up a grocery bill while waiting in line at a store.
6) Memorize times tables. (0x1 = 0 …. 0 x 10 = 0, 1×1 = 1 … 1 x 10 = 10, etc) Make a game out of it. Quiz someone in your family.
7) Watch a nature show and write down jot-note facts that you learned. (i.e. – rabbits have many enemies)
8) Go online and play a math game.
Leveled Readers – On Tuesdays I will be sending home a small reader that you may keep at home. Please encourage your child to read it to someone in your family. There may be a worksheet to go with it as well.
Monday – copy down the spelling words for the week, three times each
Tuesday – write sentences using the list words. You could write one sentence per each word or try to write a sentence that uses two or three words.
Wednesday – do a math sheet. I have attached one sheet per week based on what we will be learning in class.
Thursday – do one of the family activities listed below.
Job Activities – This week the homework will center on job activities.
Day 1 – Tonight your child is to choose an adult in his/her family to interview about their job. Please help him/her complete the task by finding the answers to these questions.
Who did you interview?
What is the name of his/her job?
Where does he/she work?
How does he/she get to work?
List three things he/she had to learn to do the job.
Does he/she like the job?
How long has he/she been doing it?
Day 2 – Draw a picture of the person you interviewed last night doing the job.
Day 3 – In an effort to show children that people need to help and cooperate to get jobs done, have the children ask the same person they interviewed earlier in the week to list three ways they need other people’s help to do their job.
Day 4 – Tonight your child is describing a job he/she might like to do by answering these questions.
What job would you like to do someday?
Why?
List three things you will need to learn how to do to do that job.
Draw a picture of yourself doing that job.
More Family Activities
Night Activities – This week the homework will center on night activities.
Day 1 – Have the children keep a journal of their activities every half hour from 5:00pm until bedtime.
Day 2 – Nighttime can be a happy time or a scary time. Have the children write (dictate) three goods things that happen at night. Choose one to illustrate as their favorite.
Day 3 – Flashlights are used at night to help us find our way in the dark. List 10 other things we use to help us find our way in the dark.
Day 4 – Since we just had Halloween, have the children make a list of candy they received for each of the colors: red, blue, green, brown, purple, yellow, orange.
Home Safety Activities (these activities went home in September but since only two students choose to do some of these, I have attached it here again. They are worthwhile activities to do with your family)
This week the homework will centre on home safety activities.
Day 1 – Have the children talk to the adults in the home about an escape plan in case of fire. Practice the plan. Have the non-writers’ adult write the plan to be brought to school to share. Writers should do the same in their owns words.
Day 2 – Have the children walk around the rooms in their homes and find dangerous things. Make a list. For five of the objects, write (dictate) a safety rule for that object. For example, for a mixer, never stick your fingers in between the blades when it is plugged into the electrical outlet.
Day 3 – Have the children write (dictate) five safety rules for using their bikes. Bring these rules to school for a class poster or book of Bike Safety Rules.
Day 4 – Have the children discuss with an adult Telephone Safety: how to answer and what to say and not to say.
Parents
– Please make sure that your child does 20 minutes of homework Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
– Please write down what they did and initial it in their planners.
– Make sure planners come to and from school every day
– Your child receives a sticker on our homework chart every day that the planner is signed with what homework was done.
– If you have any comments or questions, feel free to write me a message in the planner as well.
Thank you for your help,
Mr. March
Interestingly enough, after sending this newsletter home, I started to get a much better return on the homework assignments. Parents now understand that they need to sign the planners each night with whatever work was done that night. I have found that it is a great system that takes the ownership of homework off of the teacher and places it on the parent. And quite frankly, that is the way it should be.