Homework Policy 2017-18

Dear Parent,

This year you should find that in the main,

the homework this year is repetitive and predictable.

This is so the students can do their homework independently.

The main aim of this homework is to create a ‘homework habit’

which will stand to them in Senior Classes and at second level.

 

I would consider that learning tables and reading

are the most important part of the homework given.

 

Tables: From October 3rd, we will start with number patterns and then move on to multiplication and division tables.

Reading: From Monday 9th October reading will be more challenging and I hope enjoyable.

Mental Maths: For the time being each night your child is asked to do the sums laid out in New Wave Maths for that day.

Learning Spellings: In general the class are very good at spellings.

When I pretested spellings from the 3rd class programme quite a number of students were getting full marks.

This meant that if I stuck to those spellings, they would have no spellings to learn.

So I am going a bit faster through the spelling lists so that each child will have three spellings a night to learn.

These are the spellings from the lists in the booklets I sent home, that are spelt  incorrectly in their pretests in their copybooks.

Irish Verbs: Children are asked to read these three times each night, to become familiar with the pronunciation and the pattern.

 

At the end of homework each day,

your child should get into the habit of paring

three pencils for use in class the following day.

In doing this your child is taking some responsibility

for their own learning. Preparing for school the next day,

like this, is a valuable habit to get into. 

 

School Policy is that homework in Third should take 30 – 40 minutes.

If homework is taking significantly less time than that a child can supplement it.

This month I will be sending home some ideas in this regard.

 

If homework takes significantly more than

40 minutes uninterrupted work,

please ask your child to stop

and sign their homework notebook to this effect.

 

If your child attends Learning Support

I would ask you to prioritise the work

given by the Learning Support teacher

as that work is carefully chosen by the LS

for your child’s specific and individual needs.

Thanking you for your support and co-operation,

First Class Maths – Useful Websites

First class have asked me for some useful websites

so that they can practise their maths at home, so here we are:

A very popular game for practising addition

and take away tables is called ‘The Balloon Game’.

Click on this link to find it.

and away we go
Creative Commons License Photo Credit: darwin Bell via Compfight

Another one the children enjoy that helps them

with their learning is Crossing the Swamp .

It is also useful for practising addition and subtraction.

 

Add Like Mad and its sister site Subtraction Action 

are like gymnastics for the brain.

 

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment 

have a number of videos online

to help parents help their child with maths.

Scroll down to view them here.

 

First and Second class is a window of opportunity

for learning tables.

Knowing one’s tables is a skill which one will call upon 

through out one’s life.

Read about the importance of tables here.

You can find other maths websites for students from 1st-6th class here.

Supplementary Homework in Maths

Here are a dozen links to Maths Activities

that you might like to try:

 

Many of these games were sourced from 

Maths Primary National Strategy – Maths Activities

This is easy; practising ‘counting on’ with 

Online ‘Snakes and Ladders’

Snakes and Ladders
Creative Commons License Photo Credit: John Johnston via Compfight

As an alternative to the

Balloon Popping Game to practice tables,

you can practice addition tables on Circus Climber

 

This activity teaches about Data

 

These are more challenging:

Practising computation with

Swimming Lengths

Long Jump

 

Measurement;

Reading measure with Javelin Throwing

 

Measuring angles;

estimating or using an online protractor with Sailing

 

Practicing Addition using ‘Who Wants To Be A Mathionaire?’

 

This is a more challenging game;

 ‘Who Wants to Be A Mathonaire?’

Mastermind
Creative Commons License Photo Credit: Steve Berry via Compfight

Like the game Mastermind this is an online game

called Code Breaker

Here is another version from Creativity Games.net

My child is not getting enough homework. What should I do?

Those of you with older children know

how the amount of homework

will build up over their years at school,

but if you feel your child

needs more of a challenge, 

here are some suggestions:

1. If you haven’t already, join the local library

and visit it weekly.

2. On this blog click on the link for ‘Educational Websites’

at the top of the page.

3. Try games such as scrabble, draughts, chess,

Monopoly and card games

4. Perhaps start an ‘extra work’ copybook.

I would be very interested any extra work done

and if your child brings these in will correct them.  

In this copy you could try some of the following:

5. Write a book review or a film review.

What was it? What happened in it?

Was it enjoyable?

What mark would you give it out of 10? Why?

6. Make a bookmark for your favourite book

or the most recent book that you have read.

7. Make a card or write a letter

to a family member or friend.

8. Beginning with the letter ‘A”

list in alphabetical order

as many names you can think of.

(Other lists can include: places, animals, foods, sports,

past times, jobs people have, things you would find in school,

in the kitchen etc.)

9. Write a story or poem.

10. Compose tune. Write the words to this song.

11. Write down all the things you are good at.

12. Describe how to play your favourite sport.

13. Write down 5 facts about something that interests you.

14. Listen to some music and draw what you see.

15. List as many adjectives or describing words that

you can think of to describe yourself

16. Describe yourself for an alien.

17. Who is the person you would most like to meet?

What would you like to ask this person?

18. Design a useful invention.

19. Draw yourself as a cartoon character.

20. Make up to quiz questions you know the answer to

and write them down.

Bring them into school and we will have a quiz.

21. List all the verbs (doing/action activities) you will do today.

22. Paint how you are feeling using colours.

23. What would you do with 3 wishes?

24. Invent your own super hero. Describe and illustrate.

If none of these appeal to you,

read or

read or ….

then again

…. read  🙂

 

Future bookworm
Creative Commons License Photo Credit: talkingplant via Compfight

Finally; some food for thought:

The following link tells the story of a school

that abolished homework and had the children read instead!

The School That Abolished Homework … and asked children TO READ instead.

It would seem to have had a positive effect.

Just a quick note about spelling for homework

Dear Parent,

1. First Teacher Pre Tests

We are starting with the Dolch List

of most frequently used words.

I am pretesting the children,

so that time is not taken up with spellings they already know.

I have stapled the Dolch List

into the Spelling/Free Writing copy.

 

I am also sending home an enlarged copy

of  list of the Dolch List  home.

You might find it useful to pop it up on a wall

somewhere at home.

 

Dolch List

I would suggest that the class levels at the top of this page

e.g. Pre Primer/2nd Grade are certainly American

and probably date back to the last century

when it was compiled by Dolch himself.

I don’t think it has any relevance to us.

2. Then she highlights the ones that need to be learnt

I have marked the misspellings from the pretests

on the photocopied page with a yellow highlighter.

I would like your child to learn five a night.

When they know them I would like them

to put them in sentences.

 

3. Then the children learn them

Understandably children often ask me

can they put their five spellings in just one sentence.

I would prefer them to write five sentences.

 

One sentence for each spelling helps practice punctuation

i.e. remembering that sentences begin with capital letters

and end in a full stop.

Also putting five random words in one sentence

can result in some very random sentences.

 

I would like the children to work

on the quality of the sentences they write

when they are practicing their spellings

and so avoid very simple sentences

like ‘I am funny,’ ’Where am I?’ or  ‘I am here’.

 

A post about developing the quality

of these sentences will follow shortly.

When a child completes the Dolch List

they can do ‘free writing’ at this time instead,

for a period of time.

 

Reading the ‘free writing’

will be a good starting point for me

for establishing words

that are frequently spelled incorrectly.

 

These are the words that we will work

on when we have finished working on the Dolch List.

 

Spelling Homework in a nutshell:

Learn five of the highlighted spellings a night.

Use the approach to learning spelling

that you were taught last year

i.e. Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check.

When you are confident that you know the five spellings

write five sentences using each one.

Remember capital letters and full stops.

Good penmanship and presentation is also important.

 

Other homework this week:

The other homework this week is Mental Maths as marked

and reading one comprehension piece from

‘A Way With Words’

 

Further information:

Scroll down this link for additional information

about a year’s plan for spelling here:

Class Plan for Learning Spelling 2012

When planning for spelling this year

I came across this very helpful blog:

Johanna Stirling’s ‘The Spelling Blog’

Thanking you, Teacher

 

And to finish:

a quote from Terry Pratchett:

 

“Nanny Ogg knew how to start spelling ‘banana’,

but didn’t know how you stopped.”

– Terry Pratchett, ‘Witches Abroad’

 

I found spellings hard at school and remember the feeling well 🙂

If you wish to supplement homework given …

My priority this month is tables and reading and maintaining the ‘homework habit.’

Those of you with older children know how the amount of homework will build up over their years at school. However if you feel your child needs more of a challenge, here are some suggestions.

– If you haven’t already, join the local library and visit it weekly. Particularly in these recessionary times, the library is a wonderful service.

– On the internet kidsclick.com lists a wide range of sites. Click on
kids.org for games that help with maths and language

– Try games such as scrabble, draughts, chess, Monopoly, card games
– Here are some other ideas. I have tried to come up with a range of ideas that would address the different types of intelligences that individuals have.

1. Write a book review or a film review. What was it? What happened in it? Was it enjoyable? What mark would you give it out of 10? Why?
2. Make a bookmark.
3. Make a card or write a letter to a family member or friend.
4. Beginning with “A” list in alphabetical order as many names you can think of. (Other lists can include: places, animals, foods, sports, past times, jobs people have, things you would find in school, in the kitchen)
5. Write a story or poem.
6. Compose a tune. Write the words to the tune.
7. Write down all the things you are good at.
8. Describe how to play your favourite sport.
9. Write down 5 facts about something that interests you.
10. Listen to some music and draw what you see.
11. List as many adjectives you can think of to describe yourself
12. Describe yourself for an alien.
13. Who is the person you would most like to meet? What would you like to ask this person?
14. Design a useful invention.
15. Draw yourself as a cartoon character.
16. Make up 10 quiz questions you know the answer to and write them down. Bring them into school and we will have a quiz.
17. List all the verbs (doing/action activities) you will do today.
18. Paint how you are feeling using colours.
19. What would you do with 3 wishes?
20. Invent your own super hero. Describe and illustrate.

If your child does any of these and brings these in I would love to see them.

On this blog you can also find age appropriate educational websites that you and your child may find of interest. To access them put the keywords ‘Educational Websites’ in the search facility or follow this link
Websites to Supplement Homework

Maths – Simple Computation: Addition & Subtraction in Second Class.

Maths – simple computation: addition/subtraction in Second Class

If you feel the need to supplement homework, these are some suggestions.

Learning simple computation (addition/subtraction tables to 10+10) really benefits the student in second class. Because when they go on to learn how to add tens and units with renaming they can concentrate on this new methodology because the addition and subtraction come easy to them.

We will be doing this in class. These websites may help you help your child.

The first  is an addition speed test.

http://www.mrmyers.org/Math_Mania/ttadd.html

http://www.ohio-distinctive.com/toybox/mathbarge/mathbarge.html

In preparation for adding tens and units with renaming, this game might be useful.

http://www.ictgames.com/sharknumbers.html

This is a good site for practicing number facts and computation:

TUTPUP.COM

Finally this site has games that practice addition and take aways at speed.

SKILL BUILDERS

Finally following a recent recommendation I will be using the following site in class.

Problem Solving with Thinking Blocks

The Thinking Blocks website teaches a visual strategy for problem solving.

Hope you find these helpful.

Teacher