Homework - What Do You Do? – Enchanted Kinder Garden

Like many of you, I’ve had a very busy summer. As it is coming to a very tragic end, homework has been on my mind for some odd reason. Random, right?

Well, my thoughts are, “What exactly will my students do for homework this year?” I hate homework in kindergarten for the simple fact that I hate giving “worksheets” for homework. My first year, I did like the rest of my team and sent what was called a Study Buddy Bag. It was just a book, a ring of sight words, letter cards maybe, and whatever else that child needed to work on. I didn’t like the accountability on that.

So, for the next three years, I did a homework calendar. I loved it. However, it seemed just right in the beginning, but then it got a little too easy, especially for my quick learners. I could have changed what they were doing, but I don’t like changing huge things mid-year.

So, I started to do a little research to see what all is out there. I needed some new ideas. Each picture links to the blog post where I found each of the homework ideas.

First up! Heidi Songs Resource

Every educator has his or her own opinion about homework. In this post, I'm sharing some things I've tried when it comes to homework, as well as some fresh ideas from other teachers. Homework can be meaningful and easy! Click through to read the tips inside.

She offers a weekly homework sheet for the students. What I like about it is the fact that it’s not TOO much at a time. I like the way it is laid out with room for weekly activities that are going on. This kind of meshes newsletter and homework together as one.

The Daily Cupcake

WOW. I love finding new ideas. I have never seen a homework journal, so to speak. We do every type of journal in class from A to Z, but never did I think to do a journal type of thing at home. I also never thought how simple and easy it would be to just send the same little notebook home. And this gives space for parents to leave notes – which is an awesome idea. Very simple to have everything laid out for the parents on what is expected. I would possibly put the notebook in a binder. I don’t know. Great idea overall, however.

And of course everyone knows about monthly calendar homework. I used that for three years. This is what I need a change from.

Busy Bees

Homework for the entire year. In a binder. The whole year. So…when I read this post – they day it was posted – I fell deeply and madly in love with the idea of making copies ONCE and never having to make a homework copy again. I’m not sure I would put the entire year in all at once. I might do a semester at a time. I’m too afraid they would lose pages, and I’d keep having to replace them. I LOVE this idea, though. It would make life so much simpler. She set it up to go with DIBELS progression, which is a great idea. It’s always weird going one way at the beginning of the school year, and then adding in a letter naming sheet, and then a nonsense word fluency sheet, and then words for phoneme segmentation… Just weird. I like how there are areas to check-off for completion. Again, accountability on some of it is iffy, but this type is a lot easier on YOU throughout the year. And I can just quickly send a book home with them.

What do YOU do for homework? I’m still not sure what I want to do or will do, but this helps me with the possibilities of what could be done.

Homework – What Do You Do?

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