HOMEWORK

Dear Barn Swallow Families,

As you already know, Home Bags will come home with your child every Monday, or the first day of our school week.  They will contain homework ("just-right" books, math homework, a spelling activity, and handwriting practice).  If your child brings finished work home it can stay at home, unless a note is attached to indicate otherwise.  Please always return the bag to school on Monday morning so that our volunteers can prepare it to go home again that afternoon.  If for some reason your child forgets to return the bag on Monday morning, we will send home new math, handwriting and spelling pages, and your child can continue to reread the same books from the previous week.  Please help your child to develop the habit of regularly returning homework each week!  When your child completes homework, it should be returned to school in the home bag. Please have your child read the "just-right" books several times throughout the week and return the books to school, so that the books may be used by another child.  My hope is that these bags will be one more tool in our efforts to work together as a team in educating your children.  Thank you!

It's helpful to establish reading routines together at home.  Children can read to you, you can read to them, or you can take turns.  Reading for enjoyment is very important!  Writing for real purposes at home, such as writing notes to family members, making lists, writing in a journal, etc. is good writing practice.  Emergent writers work on 'writing the sounds they hear.'  They start with phonetic writing, though working on the spelling of sight words (for example, said, the, was) is always a good idea because these words do not typically follow 'phonetic rules'.  Encourage your child to stretch out words and to try to include a letter for each sound he or she hears.  Encouragement and support of this stage is really important.  Ask your child about our Story Workshop where students use materials to make (and find) a story.  As your child plays at home, see if he or she can record part of all of their stories through writing.  Cooking, measuring, telling time by the hour and possibly five minute increments, adding and subtraction single and double digit numbers, working through family story problems, and working with coins all will help support your child as a mathematician.  The more these activities are incorporated into everyday home routines, for real purposes in an enjoyable context, the better connection students will have to how school can help them with 'real life.'

Please contact me with any questions you may have.  Thank you families for your support at home!

Sincerely,

Sherry