Recently, there has been much debate about homework in elementary schools. According to an article written by Maria Onzain, research suggests that there is no benefit to giving elementary school students homework and only at the secondary level is homework beneficial. She states five reasons why teachers should not assign homework at the elementary age. One reason is that homework can give students a negative attitude about school, as they are just starting out their schooling careers and adding work on top of the work they already complete during the day can burn them out. Another reason states that homework gives less time for kids to be kids.
This article and others like it, have helped me reflect on my own homework practice in my kindergarten classroom. Kindergarteners are just starting their journey through school and one thing that led me to teaching kindergarten was the fact that my classroom would be their first experience and hopefully a positive experience to school. I never realized that I could be hurting their outlook on school by assigning homework that is not meaningful.
Through these reflections, I’ve decided that I will be slowly changing my homework policy. Previously, I assigned homework packets. Students take home their packet on Mondays and turn it in to me on Fridays. Each day, students are assigned 20 minutes of reading along with a math or language arts page that goes along with what we are learning in class. In the first half of the year, students are working on memorizing sight words. They get a sheet of sight words cards that they can cut out and use like flash cards. In the second half of the year, students get spelling words that they need to practice throughout the week at home for a test on Friday.
I’m changing my homework policy to be a more meaningful experience for the children by giving them a two-week project (2 projects a month) that revolve around a theme we are covering in class. These projects are more meaningful because they will give students a hands on opportunity to experience the world around them and will hopefully give parents a time to connect with their child through working together on these projects.
I’ve decided to try this new homework policy out on my class with their first project all about community helpers. We have been learning all about community helpers in class through books and videos. For this project, students pick one type of community helper to focus on. They find books about this helper, decide where they are going to visit this helper, write interview questions to ask this person and then once they have gathered as much information as they can, they create a poster to then present to the class and teach their friends all they have learned about their chosen community helper. What I like about this type of homework, is that students will be having fun while they are learning. 
They will be invested in this project because they get to choose what type of community helper they want to learn more about. I also like that parents will get to be involved in their child’s learning by visiting a place in the community with their child.
I’m in the process of creating hands on projects like this for the entire kindergarten school year. One thing I will keep in place is assigning 20 minutes of reading a night.
As this is a very new concept for me and my classroom, I have many questions I was hoping people would share their thoughts on.
…What are your thoughts on my new homework policy?
… How do you assign homework?
… What types of projects would you be interested in assigning in your classroom?
… What types of themes do you cover in your classroom?
If you would like to trial my community helper project in your classroom, subscribe to my email list. This project is completely free and I would love to hear feedback on how it goes in your room!
