REGARDING THE HOMEWORK AND THE HOMEWORK CALENDAR:
For those of you who have had Kindergartners before, there were years where we sent home packets
of work. Some of that work came from workbooks the school purchased with the math programs.
Other work came from worksheets that the Kindergarten teachers found in teacher books and
copied on the copy machine. When we added the journal writing in January of those years, many
complained that the homework was too much. There were also many concerns that although the
work sheets came from Kindergarten Standards based workbooks, many children were beyond that
level. These children felt the homework did not make appropriate use of their time. Add to that the
high cost of paper and copying, it was deemed necessary to devise another program.
The state has standards for every subject and somewhere in all that is the recommended amount of
homework. Kindergarten isn't even on the chart. However, it has been our experience that
homework is beneficial if approached with one's child's abilities in mind. As a result, we have gone to
a homework calendar that we modified to fit with our curriculum. In many places we wrote "name"
this or "tell someone" that instead of "write" this or "list" that.
The reasoning behind this was that we really wanted our students to be able to do the activities and
not get weighed down with the mechanics. Therefore, if a child needed to work on some of these
tasks orally and write others, the option of which ones to do that with are there. For the main
handwriting activities, we wanted them to focus on the Homework Journals we send home each
week. These journals are far more than they appear. The journals put together the skills students
have learned so far. They include knowing the letters, how to write them, the sounds they make,
blending the sounds to make words, segmenting words to hear the sounds and then match up the
letters to the sounds and then write the words. It also gives them a chance to practice writing the
sight words they have learned with such repetition that they no longer have to look up the word to
spell it. Students can practice the mechanics of penmanship and the use of line and space in a
meaningful and practical way. In addition to the standards mentioned above that the journal writing
addresses, it also addresses the standard that Kindergartners are to be able to write a sentence on a
topic.
In addition to "meeting" the Kindergarten Standards, the journals also allow those children who are
working at a level above the standards to have the freedom to explore their own abilities. Through
journal writing, students are learning many of the spelling rules with regard to long vowels, past
tense, ing endings, and others. Journal writing also introduces students to adjectives and adverbs as
they write more and more descriptive sentences. They may not understand all the "terms" that go
with what they are doing but when these topics are taught in later grades, they will have the
experiences upon which to reflect and therefore understand and relate to the lesson they are being
taught.
As far as math homework, notes are often sent on worksheets when children are writing
numbers backwards and children are asked to practice writing them. Our web site also has the
number charts that allow children to practice writing numbers. In class we try to do as many "story
problems" with math as possible to allow children to "experience" math. It is common every day
stories that we tell. If you are ever near the lines outside before school, you will hear the children
comparing which line has more and which line has less. They also count and figure out how many
more are in one line than the other and also how many of each group are still missing. The terms
they use, "greater than, less than, more, less, equal, odd number, even number" are all
standards for Kindergarten and first grade. We do these kinds of story problems in line while waiting
for the bell. But they are the same kind you can do with your child while setting the table, at the
market, at the soccer game, all throughout the day. Math will make more sense to them and it will
give them the "ownership" of numbers and language that will carry them onto more difficult and
abstract concepts.
This same philosophy applies to the RAH (Reading At Home) slips. There is a direct correlation
between the number of minutes a student reads, or is read to, or any combination thereof, to the
student's reading skills. Different rates of growth always play a role but... practice = success, &
success= an additional willingness to try, & an additional willingness to try = additional successes,
and then additional successes result in additional willingness to practice, and so on, and so on.
And so goes my tweaked adage of "Success Breeds Success"
MARCH HOMEWORK:
The March homework calendar lends itself quite readily to a variety of differentiated homework
activities. If your child does an activity that doesn't directly specify writing, have your child write out
the answer anyway. You can have your child either write their observations, dictate the observations
to another person who will write them down, or else draw a picture of their observations. I am
referring to activities such as putting food coloring in a glass of fresh water and then salt water.
When your child goes to the library and checks out a book, have him/her locate and write down the
title, the author, the illustrator. (All of which are state standards.)
