Mrs. McCurley's 1st Grade

Check your child's agenda every night for specific homework assignments!

Don't forget to sign and return the agenda each day.

Your child's Work Folder will also come home every day!

Homework will be in the right pocket...send it "right" back!

Classwork will be in the left pocket...it can be "left" at home!

Homework is a fact of life, along with soccer practice, dance lessons, and all the other demands on a student's time. Start homework routines when children are young, so healthy study habits are implanted by the time homework becomes more complex and time consuming. Homework is an excellent way to reinforce classroom learning and provide opportunities to teach students personal responsibility for that learning.
Your child will have several assignments during the school day for which he or she is responsible. It is the student's responsibility to return work to the appropriate area. Work not returned will result in a child missing a special activity to complete the missing work.

Homework should take your first grader approximately (no longer than) 20-30 minutes each night to complete. Your child should be fairly independent (you may have to help read directions) in completing their homework, as I go over the expectations each day when we discuss these assignments.

If your child is taking longer than 30 minutes to complete the assignments, please let me know. The less anxiety a child experiences during this time the better able he/she is to complete the assignments successfully.

Along with the assignments I do require all children to read each evening. I personally do not consider this "homework." I think it helps children become better readers and it allows them to enter into a world that perhaps they could only "dream" about...It of course, is also an excellent way to gain knowledge!

When your child misses a day he or she will be given extra time to complete missed assignments.

In order to facilitate the various homework assignments, I've given each child a Homework Folder. If there is homework assigned for reinforcement or work to be completed by your child, it will be in this folder. An empty folder signifies that there is no homework being sent home from school on this day. The Homework Folder may come home on any day of the week except Fridays, so please check your child's backpack daily. (I try to limit sending homework on Wednesdays.) Please make sure that your child returns both the assignment(s) and the folder. I hope that the Homework folder will make it easier to keep track of homework. I'd appreciate any comments you may have on this matter.

Finally, these guidelines will help you to establish homework expectations in your home.

• Establish a homework routine, preferably the same time and place every day, with some flexibility.
• Treat homework as an important activity, something that needs to be scheduled and not just squeezed in between activities.
• Establish an appropriate study setting which is distraction free.
• Be aware of your child's best time to do challenging work- usually when they have the most energy.
• Draw the line between helping your child do his/her homework and doing it for him/her. That can be difficult to determine but it's crucial that parents do so. Help your child when he/she becomes frustrated, but do not do the work.