School 2 Home Learning Connection

Letter to my Class Families this year:

"Why I'm Not Doing Homework This Year -

My intention is to make sure there is enough time in our students' days for family time and activities and I want to balance that with time for reading and some real world math and writing.

I'd like students to focus mainly on reading everyday so they have a comfortable, calm space at home to enjoy reading. For the other areas of math and writing I will share options for exploration. This will give parents an idea of the areas we are working on in class. If something comes up at home that is a better "real life" experience with math or writing, I'd love for your student to have that time and opportunity instead. (Here is one article that discusses thoughts on student choice and time spent on homework. Link here)

There are links to a form on the side for your student to share what he or she is working on. If he or she is working on an online file, have them put the link to the url in the form so I can access it. (Here is a link to make a copy of my form.)

If family time and extracurricular time prevents students from getting to these activities, I understand. We will be working hard everyday in class and I think students should have time for other things in their lives too.

Class Dojo points will be earned for sharing things they are learning and trying challenges. If your student is pursuing an area of interest that they would like to share, have them tell me about it in the comment section of the form and I'd love to give them Challenge Accepted points and share in their interest.
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However, if your student decides not to use their time wisely in class, then completing that class work might be required and I'll let you know.

Basically, what I'm saying is anything beyond the reading is optional, but I will acknowledge and support their practice and extra interests. There will be projects that may require some work at home throughout the year."

Each week I will post the topics we are learning in class and ideas for games and exploration if the students would like some resources. We also often have topics that come in discussion that we'd like to know more about. We'll be coming up with an "I Wonder" board to post topics and things we discover on those topics. 

Nearpod Live or as Homework

I haven't blogged about this yet, but I love Nearpod! I think of it as kind of an 'in yo face' slide show but it's more than that. First, for a live presentation all screens show the same material and progress at the same pace. You control what students see and interact with and it's all on their own laptops or tablets. More than that, there are so many interactive elements. Students can answer polls, draw or write what they are thinking, do a quick quiz to check comprehension, check out embedded sound or web links and more!

Nearpod Info

My class loves when I pull their work to the main classroom screen and they get to discuss and check how that person did. No names are shown on the screen but about 99% of the time, my kids will say "That's mine!" The quick quizzes give each student immediate feedback on their own screen so they can see how they are doing.

It's very simple to create a Nearpod. You can use an already created file in the Nearpod library. You can create one from scratch, you can upload a powerpoint or pdf to use. There is even a Google extension called Nearpodize This that let's you take a Google Slides file directly to Nearpod. Once you load the slide show up you'll want to add interactive activities. That's where it gets fun for the kids. Can we say active participation?!

With a subscription, you can use Nearpods as homework activities. This is using the Nearpod file self paced, but all answers and interactive parts are saved in reports. The homework Nearpod could also be used as a center activity, or review. I have used it with audio files to have the kids do a self paced spelling quiz.

Give Nearpod a try!