[teachz2]

I am moving to first and am trying to revamp my homework. What do you give as homework?

[AddieJ]

This was just posted on the primary K-3 board and Joanna123 made many good points about homework & included some follow up articles.

http://www.proteacher.net/discussion...ad.php?t=82284

For homework this year I used a program from a Scholastic professional book called Fast Start for Early Readers (K-2) and I found lots of success with it. You can read more about it at the above post. It would be a good program for first grade (I used it in kdg.)

[janicepet]

I make a weekly homework packet that's given to the children on Monday to be returned Friday. For each of the four days, I give a language arts and math page to be completed. These can include spelling practice, phonics, grammar, etc. whatever we're working on during the week. A night's homework should take no more than fifteen or twenty minutes to complete in my district. The parents love having all week to complete the packet with their child.

[froggy girl]

As a parent, as well as a teacher, I am leaning towards much less homework. I know that parents these days are busy and don't always have the time to sit down with their children and help. Life is just busy sometimes.

I think that the most important thing that students need to do when they get home is READ, READ, READ and have some time to have some fun. They are in class 7 hours ago and need time to decompress just like the rest of us.

[MNPolly]

I completely agree that homework for homework’s sake is a waste of my time and my students’ time. As one who struggled in elementary school, homework was just an extension of my already stressful/academic day. However, I work at a school that has a policy about 20 minutes a night of homework (in addition to 20 minutes a night of reading). My team has decided to send home weekly packets so it can be done when time allows. Also, we send it home on Friday's. Our families are generally large families and they are all very involved in extracurricular activities. With the homework over the weekend, they have the opportunity to do some of it when there is less happening. The night with soccer practice no longer has homework hanging over their heads.
I send home three phonics/grammar sheets for the week and one math critical thinking problem a night. The phonics sheets are always leveled (from the Harcourt basal series, highlighting the skill for that week) so that a low student isn't doing a crossword and a high student isn't tracing letters. Then they have reading to do. I haven’t had any parent complaints since I switched to this.

[laceyl]

I don't believe in giving too much as homework is just to practice what we already did. I usually give something three times a week - a math homework page, sometimes 2, either their bookbags or poetry notebooks and a grammar/phonics page. On top of this, they should also be practicing spelling words and math facts.

[iluvpooh]

I give HW Mon-Thur
My school uses the Rigby series-which comes with Phonics Charts to teach various skills. I type up the poem from the chart that we read daily to practice the skills taught for the week-they are also required to read for 15 min each night and are given a math skill sheet-by 2nd Nine Weeks-I also send a reading comprehension sheet on Tues and Thurs

I have never had any complaints from my parents that I am giving too much HW I have attached a copy of my HW sheet