2011/2012 HOMEWORK

 Because young children respond well to routines throughout their daily lives, the First Grade homework will follow the same pattern each week. This way, the students will come to know what is expected of them each night, and this should make life easier for the parents as well. Homework will reinforce skills that we are learning that week in the classroom. The students will also be expected to read each night, in order to become more familiar with common patterns in words, sight words, and the basic process of reading. In addition to this, they will be asked to practice their spelling words each night. Spelling words will reflect the letter patterns that we are learning in Phonics that week, and a spelling test will be given each Friday.

Here is the homework schedule for the 2011/2012 School Year:

TAKE HOME FOLDERS:

Each child will label one of their folders on the first day as their "take home folder". This folder is  very important.  It holds their homework assignments each night, the announcements for the week, graded work, and any important notes or reminders being sent home. I ask that you please look through your child's folder each night to make sure you do not miss anything. Thanks so much!

HOMEWORK PROCEDURES:

Homework is always due the morning after it is assigned. The kids will turn in their take home folders first thing each morning. I will be grading homework each night, and will send it home in their take home folder each Monday. Although homework will have a grade on it, this is for your knowledge only, and will not be factored into the students' report card grades. It will simply allow you and I to track your child's progress, and see what they are struggling with, as well as where their strong points lie. The reason these grades are not factored into their final report cards is because I don't want to grade them on skills that they may not have necessarily mastered by the time they do their homework. Also, I encourage parents to sit with their children while they do their homework each night, so it would be hard for me to assess the student on work that they may or may not have had assistance with completing.

SPELLING WORDS:

Each week, the students will be given a list of spelling words which they will be tested over every Friday. I will post them on the website, as well as on their weekly announcements sent home each Monday. The spelling words will always coincide with the letter pattern we are learning in the classroom that week. Discovering that words follow patterns help students build an understanding of words, rather than committing random letters to memory. Simply memorizing spellings, without recognizing patterns will only hold a word in a child's memory for a very short amount of time.

The spelling words for the week of 1/3/12 are: digraphs

she, fish, chin, much, who, when

SIGHT WORDS:

In addition to a list of spelling words, the students will be sent home each week with a list of sight words. These are high frequency words in the English Language that will appear throughout our lessons that we do that week, especially in our reading stories. These words are important because they are used so often throughout text and daily language, that if children learn to recognize them, they will drastically improve their reading skills. We will learn these words throughout the entire week in the classroom, and will post them to our "word wall" in the back of the room once the students have mastered them and committed them to memory. They will NOT be tested over these words!

The sight words for the week of 1/3/12 are: grow, light, long, more, other, right, room, small, these

HOMEWORK PHILOSOPHY:

  Homework is very important for reinforcing skills learned in the classroom, and gives children an opportunity to take learning outside of the classroom setting. I ask that you reiterate the importance of homework to your child, and shed a positive light on homework when speaking about it. Thank you for your assistance in keeping your child enthusiastic about school!