Homework is such a hot topic these days - I know I have never been a fan of it for Kindergarten.
Our schedule is very rigorous and my students are exhausted at the end of the day! I would prefer they go home and spend time with their family and enjoy their evenings (I know that is what I like to do!)
Of course, I want them to have access to fun activities that support literacy and math - just not in the traditional worksheet format.
Every morning I put out the take-home library books - they can take up to 3 home to read to their families and then swap when they are finished.
I also send home skill games for them to play with their families. In order to familiarize my class with these games, we play them in ELA centers and during morning arrival time.
Once they are comfortable with how to play, I send home a few different game boards with some dice and
these game pieces from Amazon (affiliate link).
As the year progresses, the difficulty of the games does too. These are my
alphabet games I use for the first few months. There are 4 boards:
- uppercase
- lowercase
- mix of uppercase and lowercase
- alphabet pictures
In the beginning they simply read the letter they land on, but as they become more familiar with these skills we add in the sounds and even words that begin with the letter. They love the challenge of thinking of a word for each letter!
If you are interested in getting a closer look at
these alphabet games and some of my others,
click here!
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