It’s Works for Me Wednesday and instead of me telling you what works for me this week I’m going to ask for some advice on something that I’d like to work for me. It’s a backwards edition of Works for me Wednesday.
My son started 1st Grade today and for homework we as parents get to choose what to do with our kids and fill out a log. We never send in the completed homework, we just send back in the homework log.
I’m looking for some creative and fun homework ideas that I can do with my little guy.
There’s lots going on over at Rocks in My Dryer that you should go check out!!
May not be the most creative thing, but READ LOTS AND LOTS OF BOOKS! I’ve got 4 kiddos and there is nothing that gets those little brains working better than books of all types (age-appropriate fiction, nonfiction, biographies, etc.). Your little guy will be the smartest kid in the class come summertime! And your son’s teacher will thank you. My sister was a 1st grade teacher for several years and she said her best advice to parents of 1st graders is to read to them at least 20 minutes a day. (If you want some good ideas, I’ve got a bunch of book lists posted here.)
Have him pick a word and then show him how to write it – have him write it 5-10 times.
Same can be done with letters, numbers etc…
Practice coloring.
Practice spelling.
Use toys for simple adding games – here are 2 cars and 3 cars, how many all together.
Pick a common word, such as THE and have him count how many times he sees it in a story book.
You are probably doing these things all the time anyhow – now you just call it homework 🙂
My first grader loves to play “Store” for homework. He writes numbers on papers and sticks them on things as their price, and sets up a store. WE come to the “store” with our money and pick out items, he has to add up the amounts and tell us the total, then we all help counting out the money, and if I give him too much he has to figure the change. It’s been great for the math skills!
You can also play hide and seek but the person who’s “it” counts by twos or tens or fives-great number work again.
Make little flash cards with the high frequency words on them and use them to make sentences–whatever they want, tell a story, see if you can use them all, etc. Hope these help!