Think About It Thursday - Homework Hassles

I've been meaning to write this post for awhile now and I just knew that I had to make myself sit down and get to posting.  Luckily, I noticed that Carla from Comprehension Connection was hosting a weekly linky on the hassles of homework and that is all the motivation that I needed to get this post started.

http://www.comprehensionconnection.net/2014/04/Think-About-It-Thursday-Homework-Hassles.html

Make sure you click on the linky button above to link up and read some other great homework hints and tricks from other teacher bloggers.

Let me start this post by saying that this year was my first year in second grade.  Although I was super excited to be starting fresh in a new grade level, I was also a little bummed because I had worked so hard perfecting my first grade homework with Amanda from Mrs. Richardson's Class.  It was hard to start over again but I took on the challenge with my new second grade team.

My kids really struggle with organization!  On top of the organization struggle, there are so many folders that have to go home and on certain days.  It's too confusing!  My school has a folder that goes home every Monday, a homework folder that goes home Monday through Thursday, and I had a behavior folder that went home daily.  It was too much and I decided on a much easier system with the help of my old teaching neighbor, Judy.  The kids have a binder that they take home Monday through Thursday.  It stays at school on Fridays so that I can stuff it with graded work, new homework, and notes.  I punched holes in the Monday folder that my school requires and it stays in their binder and never leaves.  You can kinda see it sticking out of the top of the binder :).  I needed a name for the binder that translated into Spanish easily for my teaching partner and so we named it our Eagle Binder to match our school mascot.  Here is one of the best looking ones at this time of year :).


Each week we send home a new homework calendar and we punch holes in it so the kids can put it at the front of their binder.  The kids do their homework on loose leaf notebook paper and return it on Friday.  Since I teach in a Dual Language classroom, the kids do homework in English and Spanish.  That is why they have Spanish spelling words too.  Here is an example of our homework calendar that my amazing partner created.


Did you notice the math homework?  That's right I do all my math homework on Edmodo and I love it!  I've been creating math lessons for my kids using camtasia and the kids watch them as their math homework.  At the end of each video, the kids have to answer questions that they answer in the comments.  Yikes, I need to revisit you're vs. your and the "w" in wrong


I've been posting two videos a week and I've been getting great feedback from both students and parents.  The great thing about using Edmodo is that they have a mobile app that most students can access on their parent's smart phone.  The kids that don't have access have the opportunity to watch the videos during our station time or on Thursday mornings before school, when they have their morning library time.  I've also sent home flash drives loaded with videos for students and that works as well.



I really dragged my feet on the whole Flipped Learning thing but I'm so glad I jumped in and got started.  I thought I would share one of the videos that I made for my kids.  Yes, I know there is a mistake in the written counting but it was too hard to fix and it was good to have the kids comment that they caught the mistake :).

Next year, I hope to use Edmodo for almost all of my homework.  The kids really enjoy responding and getting feedback faster than the pencil and paper homework.  It's also much easier to keep track of and stay organized.  I hope to post more about Edmodo and my Flipped Learning classroom in future posts.

I hope you enjoyed reading about how I handle the homework hassles.  Make sure to click on the blog button at the top of this post to read how other teacher bloggers handle their homework hassles.


3 comments

  1. Homework calendar - now that's a good idea! Wish my teachers back then did this. Would have loved to have a homework schedule. Not spur of the moment, last-minute assignments. You seem to really enjoy teaching. Kudos to you! - Layce of Homework-desk.com

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