Let’s talk homework. I know it’s important to start teaching kids about responsibility, but I also know my kid and some days we are just busy after school. We don’t get home until late, eat dinner late and then he just wants to play, not just do homework. He’s 6, I get it. So a few years back my grade level began a monthly homework packet and I love it!

The students have a whole month (or five weeks) to complete their homework. We provide the guide, but they can choose what night works best for their schedule. We have found this works great for split families and when there is some sort of event during the week (sports, performance, etc).

Every 4-5 weeks we send home a new pack in their folders.
We begin with our monthly calendar.

I have made these for each five week cycle. I just change the dates and add vacation days when needed. They stay the same throughout the whole year…easy peasy. I’ll go into more detail below as to what each sections is about (see the numbers on the picture above).

1. Star Words

These are our weekly star words. I actually call them popcorn words in my class, but my kids know them as star words too. I introduce five each week. They practice reading them at home nightly. I give my parents ideas on how to practice these during back to school night. Some of my kids already know how to read them, so I challenge them to learn how to spell them. On Friday, I test them either on reading them or spelling them. You can see more about how my weekly words work by clicking here.

2. Journal Strips

Two days a week our students write in their journal. We provide them with a spiral binder and each week they get one sheet from my Year of Journal Strips.

They choose two (or more if they would like) prompts each week and write about them in their journal.

3. Math and Language Arts Practice

Each week we put in a practice math page and language arts page. These are usually some sort of a review of topics we have already taught. They may come from my Print and Do packs or our math and reading series.

4. Reading Logs

We have our students read nightly and moved away from the reading log that the parents fill out. We have the students read ten minutes and then color in a picture. My grade level partner Susan over at Friendly Froggies designed thematic reading logs for us and they work great.