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Year 1 Homework.tips? organisation? curricullum?

6 replies

mypigeonpair2 · 17/03/2015 11:25

My DD comes home with a small amount of homework at the start of the week - it IS only a small amount (usually reading book, spellings, a list of sums) She is 6, and in year 1. She loves sitting down and working through work books i have bought her, but I would like to introduce some of my own activities and further her potential. I am finding it difficult to organise myself with homework activities that match the curriculum etc.

Does anybody have any homework advice, what types of activities do you do, websites that are useful? homework organisation tips..that kind of thing? I have been thinking about maybe making up a homework rota but am a bit stuck as to what subjects/activities to include.

Evenings are generally very busy (as im sure you all know) and i find the timeframe between getting home from school and going to bed is VERY short once dinner,bathtimes,bedtime routines have all been done, so don't want anything too ambitious.....any advice would be massively appreciated!

T.i.A

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moojie · 17/03/2015 11:33

I'll be following the replies you get as I have been wondering the same this week. D's is yr1 but not 6 until the summer. He is flying at his reading and phonics but seems to struggle a bit more with maths. He LOVES learning and during the holidays will happily complete workbook after workbook. I have been looking for websites with a bit more guidance on how to help him with the maths side of things.

noramum · 17/03/2015 11:35

BBC Bitesize KS1 is quite good to practice and the games are small and don't take lots of time.

We get homework on Fridays and normally do them on Saturday/Sunday depending what is going on. If DD is not finished she finishes Monday after school.

She does her spelling in the morning, as well as timestable practice and other mental maths. We use Squeeble Ipad app for this.

In Infant she read each evening to us. She now reads on her own, mainly in bed after the good night story and each weekend a couple of pages aloud to us.

capsium · 17/03/2015 11:37

I went through stages of doing a bit extra with my DC. Usually when there was something that I knew some practice would help with. I used to buy the maths workbooks from WHSmith's (or the like) aimed at their age group and I got some good reading Comprehension books from Amazon. I also used handwriting practice books.

Regarding routine I used to let my DC have a snack and wind down for half an hour after school, then it was homework time for 20 mins to half an hour, before I started cooking. If there was no homework set, I would do one of the practice books with my DC and that was the homework. Usually would spend 15 mins on one of the activities and then 15 mins reading the set reading book.

Ellle · 17/03/2015 12:16

I'm also interested in following any replies with good organisation tips.
Like you, I wanted to introduce activities of my own (in our home language) to do with DS1 ever since he was in foundation and found it really difficult to be able to do anything in the small period between school pick up and dinner time with a 1 year old in the house always wanting to play with us as well.

Luckily DS1 is a night owl, and didn't mind doing the activities after DS2 was in bed, but it means he goes to sleep later than most kids his age.

Anyway, what we manage to do is daily reading (he reads the school books to DH, and another in our language to me, I read a longer chapter book to him, and talk about the books, what he thinks is going to happen, what he would do in that situation, and help him with new vocabulary).

For maths, when he was in reception I tried to find games where we could apply the things he was learning (e.g sum swamp for addition and subtraction, snakes and ladders, or made up games with superheroes and villains cards with points that he needed to add or subtract in order to see who was the winner, that kind of thing). With time tables we used apps sometimes (Squeeble is great for this), and some card games like Monster Maths, Fairy tables. We also played other kind of games like pizza fractions, shut the box, your number is up, pop to the shops, etc. He loves maths, and would never complain about having to do maths at home as he sees it as a game. The workbooks haven't been so much a hit with him. So we do the same kind of questions as quick mental maths competitions and he prefers that.

For other subjects, there are some good links that have been posted in MN with the new curriculum for each year on every subject (science, history, maths, literacy, etc). You can use that as a guide to find activities that follow up on what she is learning at school.

In my case, it was a bit tricky as I wanted to follow the curriculum, but at the same time I needed to do it with resources in a different language. So I think I finally found my solution with textbooks in the target language that we can use to read, discuss, and follow up with activities if we want. It has saved me a lot of time doing it that way. But in English, you should be able to find plenty of resources without having to get a textbook that matches the curriculum.

If you search posts by PastSellByDate you'll find lots of useful ideas for math games and websites.

These are the links I have:
resources.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/index.html (free) (e.g dino place value game)
www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/ BBC bite site
www.mathszone.co.uk/
www.coolmath-games.com/1-number-games-01.html

And if you go to this thread, you'll find links for the new curriculum for all subjects:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/2327478-Year-5-expectations-how-much-has-curriculum-changed

Hope this helps you.

mypigeonpair2 · 17/03/2015 17:47

Thank you all, that's really helpful. I think I'm going to check out the bitesize website and the squeeble app tonight and the other bits for some ideas.

I think I need to get my late afternoon/evening routine in check aswell, in terms of doing homework at the same time every evening (and sticking to it)

thanks again all :)

OP posts:
reddaisy · 17/03/2015 17:51

Marking place! I have also bought those workbooks from WHSmiths with exercises in it and I read a lot with DD but some of these links look good so we can explore a bit more together.

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