My First Grade Fairy Tale: September 2016

The awesome first grade team at my school is mixing things up with HOMEWORK for the first time! I am excited to be a part of this journey! I did not create any of these materials. They were made by my team and/or found from online resources. In addition to my flexible seating options in my classroom, students also have a FLEXIBLE HOMEWORK board to complete each month. There is a monthly calendar full of fun and creative things to do at home. Some are service oriented while others have you create, build, and explore, and some have you go on a scavenger hunt in your home. Students can choose to complete as few or as many of these choice board activities a month that they like. The feedback from parents has been wonderful! They keep sending me photos of their kids making fun things, giving service, bonding with a parent and/or siblings, and more. This has strengthened the connection between home and family.

In addition to the monthly choice board, they have a weekly "packet" that goes home. They have high frequency words we have learned in class to practice reading for 60 seconds a night. Read independently or someone read to them for 15-20 minutes a night. Then, there are suggested activities to practice their basic math skills (right now- practice counting to 120), spelling words for the week, and an occasional math worksheet that may go home (right now I'm just sending home the math review sheet completed in class for extra practice before math test days).

After being a stay-at-home mom for 7 years, my views of parent communication and homework changed drastically! It was a constant fight to complete 1-2 hours of homework a night that the kids could rarely do independently (I'm taking crazy long packets of 1st grade homework!). My kids both excel in school and are well behaved. Homework became the only negative thing about school, and it made evenings very stressful. They had already been sitting in a chair learning for 6.5 hours that day, then they were expected to come home and sit for another hour or two to do homework (which a LOT of parent help). My kids would look at me and say they just want to go outside and play or go upstairs and build with their Legos or play Barbies. As a teacher and dutiful mom, I made them get their homework done first. It was torture!!! Add on soccer practice a few nights a week, a soccer game every Saturday for 4 months, church activities once a week, and you are lucky to have any down time. My kids also have an early bedtime of 6:00pm, so it made things even more difficult. Now that they are in 2nd and 4th grade, I have moved bedtime back to 7:00pm in hopes of having more interaction and play time after I get off work with my kiddos.

I do not want my students to go through the same problems and stress when they go home. My goal is for them to spend no more than 30-40min. a night on homework (including 15-20 min. of daily reading). I have moved my children's daily reading to part of their morning routine, so now homework after school is more manageable, and since they are older, they can do most of it independently. Their current teachers are also backing off of sending home "packets" of worksheets for homework. The focus is on reading their AR book daily, writing a brief summary, and other random projects that come home.

My coworker started the new homework this year after years of her own personal research about the benefits of homework. She found that there was no real correlation between homework and success or improved scores in school. Why stress out students, parents, and teachers (hours of grading and recording homework packets each week) when there is no real benefit? Instead, I encourage kids to go home, eat a healthy snack, unplug technology, and go outside and play!!! Or they can explore all of the toys in their rooms, use their imaginations, and create something new and wonderful! My son's favorite time in his room is taking apart his fancy Lego ships and buildings something entirely new from his imagination. He took apart the Millennium Falcon and rebuild his own "Millennium Pidgeon." Sometimes kids need the opportunity to be bored and have nothing structured to do. It is during those times that my kids are most creative and imaginative.

Thank you, DONORS CHOOSE! We were able to successfully raise almost $600 to purchase 6 brand new WOBBLE CHAIRS from Amazon.com to expand our flexible seating options in our classroom. The kids LOVE the new wobble chairs! Wobble chairs are the #1 choice followed closely behind by the yoga balls.

Updates: Many have asked me how flexible seating is going in my classroom. We are about 3 weeks into the school year, and I am happy to report that the students LOVE flexible seating options. Students have been responsible about choosing seats that allow them to do their first grade best. If they do not choose wisely, I warn them, and then move them to a different area if necessary. Some problems we have encountered: yoga balls rolling around the room (they are round, after all), too much bouncing on the yoga balls (the yoga ball table has been known to be on a "time out" on days where students forgot the expectations, clipboards are left on the rug from students working in the library or from rug and then they get stepped on when people walk around). Students still need reminders of being responsible for our community supplies. The expectation is that the classroom is clean before every recess/ lunch/ end of school day. EVERY student has a job and I give them ample time to complete their job before going outside (librarian, custodian, chair monitor, supply monitor, etc.). This has saved me tons of time not having to clean up the room. I wipe down the tables with Lysol wipes (top secret because they are not allowed at my school!) a couple times a week to keep away the germs. Other than that, the students keep the classroom clean and well organized!

Class Job chart with student numbers (jobs rotate weekly).

I show up to work a bit before contract time and leave shortly after contract time. My coworkers are amazed we get so much done and that my classroom looks so nice when I don't live at school. I said that we work hard as a classroom community and we play hard (we LOVE 5 minutes of fun to motivate students to try their best!). We get lots done during each day then enjoy going home to our loved ones. 5 minutes of fun is a way to reward awesome behavior. As long as you have a high enough % of good behavior in Class Dojo, you can participate in 5 Minutes of Fun!!! If you have struggled with making good choices, you are in a 5 minute time out (sitting at the kidney table with head on the desk while the class has a fun activity). Various 5 minutes of fun ideas: