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Kindergarten homework6/15/2023 ![]() It also provides an instant marker for how well they’ve done and encourages them to do better the next time. ![]() Encourage them to try out every area and find what they like best and the areas that require a bit more practice.īuilt-in scoring helps parents see their growth. Giving students the choice to explore their way and on their own terms helps to develop confidence and gives them autonomy of choice. There are a lot of easy, no extra materials needed ways to practice these skills that won't stress kindergarten kids or parents.When choosing kindergarten classroom games, find a site that has a variety of play options, many subjects, and built-in scoring. For math practice, instead of doing a page of addition problems, have students tell and solve their own addition story problems using their favorite toys. If you want kids to practice writing, give them fun writing prompts or open-ended options. For example, instead of practicing writing letters with a pencil, encourage students to write letters in sand or pudding. However, when I do include them, I try to keep them open-ended. You can add life skills like practice playing games (winning and losing with grace), tying shoes, helping to fold laundry and more. Skills like memorizing phone numbers and addresses are important things kids do not often do anymore. You can choose to include only academic tasks but I like to include some more developmentally appropriate skills that are often overlooked. This can be a list, a chart, or even a calendar! You can send this list home to give families options and give kids some choice in their assignments. Then create a list of 15 – 20 choices full of skills you want your students to practice. Think about your academic goals for the week or the month. There are so many fun possibilities! Give Families Homework Options! Play games with dice to develop number sense and social skills like taking turns. Practice writing letters and numbers in sand, finger paint or shaving cream! Create math problems with toys or breakfast cereal. Think about how you design engaging centers and apply that to homework. ![]() Keep “assignments” fun and engaging with a variety of ways to practice important foundational skills. You can differentiate homework by giving students options and allowing families to choose the activities that are the best fit for their students. Sending the same worksheet with each student is not differentiating. In school, we know that all kids have different learning styles so we need to remember this when assigning homework. They don't need to go home to sit with worksheets and pencils to continue to practice sight words (which the latest brain research doesn't support anyway, but that's a blog post for another day). Kids work hard all day (or for half the day) at school. In distance learning or remote learning situations, teachers are under even more pressure! Check out this page for some distance learning types for Kindergarten teachers. ![]() So what can teachers do to help their young students to practice skills at home but still allow them to be kids? We can start by giving students a variety of homework options rather than requirements. The problem is that we've lost sight of what we know is natural child development. Sharing learning responsibilities with families is a productive way to help students achieve and giving parents activities and skills to practice at home is certainly helpful. Then parents decided that they need kindergarten homework to help them to achieve this goal. Then that pressure was transferred to teachers who decided that in order to achieve this goal, they needed to share the responsibility with parents. The pressure put on teachers to have all kindergarten students meet the same high academic standards at the same time is completely unrealistic.
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