Homework
In kindergarten, much of our homework is completed through exploration and play. Kindergarten homework helps to develop responsibility, routines, and set the foundation for future homework practice.
Your child will have three different types of homework:
Reading, Writing and Math.
Reading:
*Read for about 15-20 minutes per night. Please spend 5-10 mins a night reading out loud to your child, and the other 5-10 minutes letting your child “read” to you. They can read the book in their homework folder, or your child has been taught the 4 ways kindergartners can read.
*Your child will be bringing home a new book once a week. Please read this book with your child and complete any additional work that is sent home with it.
Ways we “read”:
*Read the words
*Retell a story that has been read to us
*Tell a story by looking at the pictures
*Find known letters/sight words
Sound Books:
Beginning the second week of school, your child will be bringing home a Jolly Phonics Sound Book every day. As we learn our letters and sounds, your child will be glueing a new letter/sound into the book. Your child will hear a story about the sound, sing a song and learn an action for each letter sound. Please have your child retell the story to you as well as produce the sound while doing the action (please refer to the Jolly Phonics Home Demonstration DVD for an example on how to complete this activity with your child). It is very important that your child practice the sounds in the book daily. Please practice the sounds in a different order every day so that your child does not memorize the order instead of learning the letters and sounds. Sound Books need to be brought to school every day!
Homework Writing Book:
Once all of the sounds have been taught, the Homework Writing Book will be sent home every Friday to be returned, completed, by the following Wednesday. A list of words will be taped on the inside cover. Please dictate each word from the list to your child to write on one page of the book. It is important that you do not show your child the words or tell them how to spell the words. You can help them to stretch the words out, but they need to spell them on their own. We also ask that you do not correct any of the spellings.
Approximately 40% of our words are so regular that they can be spelled correctly by listening for the sounds and writing the letters that relate to those sounds. Examples of such words are: "went, run, left, stamp," etc. As this is such a large percentage, it is important for students to practice "sounding out" and writing these words. The Homework Writing Book is designed for this and is a good way of developing independent writing.
Please click on the button above for the list of weekly words.