Homework

I dislike homework. Some parents want it, some parents don’t. Some kids complete it regularly, some kids never do. Every year I have tried something different, and I still get the same results. Although our board still says that the expectation is that if you are in grade 3, you do 30 minutes of homework a night, and if you are in grade 4, you do 40 minutes a night, my principal happily approved this letter I sent home to parents last week…. YAY! Not only does it save me time to focus my planning on more “important” things, it also gives students to spend time learning with their families.

The Ontario Ministry of Education has updated it’s provincial Report Card – homework completion has been removed, and incorporated into the Learning Skill of Responsibility. Students are expected to:

1. Fulfill responsibilities and commitments within the learning environment.
2. Complete and submit class work, homework, and assignments according to agreed-upon timelines.
3. Take responsibility for and manage own behaviour.

For nightly homework, students will be assigned special personalized projects throughout the term. It is also the expectation that if a student does not complete an assignment in class**, they will complete it for homework that night. Incomplete classroom work will only be sent home if the student was clearly not using class-time appropriately. It will not be sent home if they do not understand the assignment, or if they worked hard on it in the allotted time.

For regular nightly homework, students and parents are encouraged to

• READ NIGHTLY!!! Students are expected to be reading every day at home. Have students read to themselves, read to others and be read to (either by an adult, sibling or audio book). Talk to your child about what they have been reading – try practicing the strategies we work on in class. Reading in English at home will help students with reading comprehension, fluency, accuracy and the love of reading. Extra reading (in any language) will strengthen their reading/writing in French. (examples: picture books, novels, magazines, newspapers, online articles, video game instructions, etc.)

• Write together – Create stories, make books, grocery lists, emails/letters, family newspapers…

• Play Board Games. Ex) Monopoly (reading, math, estimating, probability, social skills), Scrabble (or Boggle or other word games), etc.

• Visit the public library

• Talk about your day, ask each other questions (weekly newsletter might help remind students)

• Cook or bake together- reading, sequencing, fractions, measuring

• Do ART together – painting, creating music, dancing, acting games…

• Play/Work/Spend time in the outdoors – collect things, talk, explore…

• Explore interesting websites together (try geocaching or learn about a favourite author)

Not only will the above homework ideas increase your child’s achievement at school, they will also be fun, family-oriented and expose your child to a variety of different learning situations.

Reading is Thinking

We have been talking about Real Reading. A reader can read the words right and have great expression, but they aren’t real readers unless they are THINKING about their reading. Our first strategy on our reading strategy menu is “arrête et pense” from The Café Book, Boushey & Moser. A lot of my introductory minilessons for metacognition came from Comprehension Connections by Tanny McGregor.

In an email from a parent: when I asked B if she was thinking while she was reading her book last night she said that she only had to do that at school!  Good try silly girl!

Small Group Organizer

draft #4. One day it will be sorted out.

Grade 3 & 4 Teeth

Being the daughter of both a dentist and a dental hygienist, I tend to look at people’s teeth. A lot. I’ve noticed a lot of teeth of 8 and 9 year olds over the past years. Their teeth are the funniest. Their adult teeth have pretty much all come in – and they are rather large, but they just seem too big for their mouths and they haven’t really set. I totally have them in an awkward period. It makes me laugh.

This post is dedicated to the goofy toothy smiles of my grade 3s and 4s over the years.

Goofy Glasses

Every year on the first day of school I take a class picture. For the past 3 years, I’ve added the goofy glasses. I love them so much (and so do the kids). And this year was no different. Here’s to a great year!

Procedures...

in our classroom, how do we….

answer the phone? behave/sit in assemblies? go to the bathroom? get a drink? eat lunch/snacks? use agendas? use computer lab? use classroom library? listen to instructions? get dismissed? enter/leave the classroom? get attention? react to visitors? act during lit block/math block/etc? walk in the hallway? behave during indoor recess? listen to announcements? manage our lunchboxes? sharpen pencils? know where to sit/work? recycle? work in groups? make up work missed?

I went to school today. They were waxing my floor, so I cannot get in until next week probably. A little behind schedule this summer – new bricks, new walls, new paint job, new windows and SMARTboards for the entire school.

I have a lot of cleaning to do.

Doo-Wop

My life for 2 months came to an end last night. Over 85 kids involved. Painting. Constructing. Acting. Singing. Dancing. Laughing.  Amazing.