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The Homework Page
Homework generally fulfils a number of purposes. My goals for homework include developing independent thinkers who are:
excited learners
confident in their own abilities and opinions
able to organize themselves and their belongings both at school and at home
developing goal setting, independence and task completion skills
see themselves as readers and writers
Homework also serves to reinforce concepts learned at school, determine whether or not a student 'owns' the learning from the classroom, and is able to use that new learning independently. As the majority of our students enter into or complete their intermediate years, it is essential that homework study skills become habitual and ingrained. Therefore, we will be beginning a new homework regime starting in January of 2013.
To begin, all students who are able to bring their iPods home have already begun to use the "Reminders" app to record homework. Reminders uses a calendar and list format that allows students to easily record required information - subject, page number, due dates, etc.. In addition, starting in January, all students will be participating in a novel study (see December newsletter and/or the Reading page for more info). The novel study will require that students read independently for at least 20-30 minutes per night. As per usual, mathematics homework will come home as needed.
To help with homework completion, the students have been taking pictures of 'anchor charts' (ie., lists of vocabulary, formulas for math, etc.) on their iPod. When possible, we will be supplementing this with videos that show processes, particularly for math. For those students who do not take their iPods home, I will post the pictures and videos onto Sakai, which is our on-line collaboration learning environment. The web address for Sakai is: http://cle.tldsb.on.ca/portal and
students log on using the same log in and password they use for their computer at school.
How you can help:
To aid in homework completion and to establish routines that can be maintained over time, the following suggestions are offered:
1. Establish a regular time and place for homework - somewhere quiet is preferable, and away from the traffic of the household, but not necessarily their bedroom where there are too many distractions.
2. Have all essential tools handy - pencils, paper, erasers, etc. (this will avoid the "I just have to get..." syndrome =:)
3. Make it a habit of checking your child's backpack for their iPod or other forms of homework tracking (agenda, notebook, etc..) EVERY night.
4. Even if no 'homework' is assigned, maintain the 20-30 minute rule by having your child read, write, or play educational computer games (ie., math, scrabble, etc.)
5. Check with your child once their homework time is up to ensure that they have, indeed, completed the work.
6. Last, but maybe most important: please ensure that their work is placed back into their backpack and is returned to school the next day!
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