Homeworkopoly

When I first started teaching 2nd grade about 10 years ago.  (I can't believe I've been teaching 2nd for that long.)  I started playing Homeworkopoly with my students. I haven't done Homeworkopoly in awhile since I changed to rewarding students with PAW tickets.  This was a part of our school wide PBIS program.  Students could earn PAW tickets for following the school rules.  One of the school rules was to Be Here Be Ready (which includes having your homework completed.)

So I did not want to compete with our PBIS school store so I put away my homeworkopoly board.  Well of course times change and PBIS is still part of our school, but now we can have more freedom to incorporate our own things. 

That got me thinking of bringing out my homeworkopoly board again for homework.  Then out of the blue I had a customer asking me about my homeworkopoly board.  So I got my old file out and I started to take a look at it.  Of course I had to revamp it.   There are so many more graphics out there I had to do some tweaking. 

Well here is a picture of it.  The picture is kind of dark since the board is sitting on my kitchen table.

A closer look at some of the spots on the game board.

Homeworkopoly is  a great way to motivate students to complete their homework and turn it in by Friday.  (I have weekly homework packets.)  I only played on Fridays.  Once the students got the hang of playing it really did not take a long time. I would do this on Friday mornings when students work on the morning journals. 

If you are interested in my School Kids Homeworkopoly Board Game you can purchase it for $8 at my TPT and TN stores.

No promises, but I hope to do a couple of themed ones as well.  It does take a lot of time to work on.  I'm thinking of a sportsolopy as my next one.


Of course if you enter my giveaway.  This could be one of the items you may choose.

Stayed tune for some an exciting news about my blog.

Weekly Homework

First of all I realized after I blogged about the giveaway that I had made the first task on the rafflecopter a must do.  It was like my Facebook page.  I realize that not everyone is on FB so I will be having a birthday freebie later this weekend.  So I apologize for leaving anyone out.  It was my first attempt at Rafflecopter so now I know what NOT to do this next time.  I'm sure I will have another giveaway or two before school starts. Thanks to all you have entered the giveaway so far.  If you haven’t entered yet be sure to check out the post below this one.

Homework has always been a struggle for me especially getting kids to read every night.  I was always getting excuses as to why “Johnny” couldn’t do his homework.  The past year I tried some new things and it helped tremendously.  Hardly had anyone not complete the homework.

The first thing I did was go to a weekly homework packet instead of giving out homework every night.  I have always been hesitant about weekly packets.  That would mean I would have to know exactly what I was going to teach that week.  (I’m one of those teachers that is always erasing/scratching out plans and changing them.)  But I ended up doing was keeping my homework simple.  Every week students had the same spelling activities to complete, I gave a few math sheets which were just a review of the previous week’s lessons, and nightly reading. 

Nightly reading that has always been a struggle.  This is the 2^nd thing that I tried last year that worked out wonderfully- My Reading Bookworm.  Every week I sent home a reading link sheet.  After students read they brought in their reading link(s).  They could bring them in as they read or all at once.  It didn’t matter to me as long as they turned them in.  When the student turned them in we stapled them to the bookworm that went around our classroom.  The students loved seeing the bookworm grow every day.  It was a great incentive. Of course I still had some students not read, but it was a lot less than in years past.

 Once we completed the link around the room we had a classroom celebration.  Celebrations could be as simple as a pajama day or you can tie it into another celebration like I did and we had pizza for our Winter Party before break. 

To find it on Teacher's Notebook

To find it on TPT

If you are interested in this packet it is now available for sale at my shops. 

Overall the weekly packets/reading bookworm was successful I will be implementing them again this year.  Of course I will make some changes.

This year I am trying to save on paper so I took 4 of the spelling activities that I used and I will be running the copies back to back.  Click on the image below to download in google docs. 

Does anyone else have any great ideas they tried last year that was a successful?  Leave a comment and tell us all about it.  We would love to hear from you.

Back To School Freebie

Reading many of the blogs I follow I am amazed at how many schools have started or will be starting next week.  I thought our district started early.  So to celebrate going back to school I have a freebie. All I ask is if you download the file be sure to become a follower of my blog if you haven't done so already.

Since homework is something that students will be doing during the school year-  It is important that students set up a homework plan.  Here's a freebie for students to fill out along with their parents to set up a homework plan of their own. 

I either give out the homework plan on the first day of school or during Open House.  Both days you are sure that this sheet gets in the hands of the parents.

If you like that idea, you may also like this one.  On the first day of school I send home a Parent Brag Sheet.  This is homework for the parents.  The students love the idea that their parents have homework to do.  Parents fill out a form telling/bragging about their child.  There have been times where I had tears reading the parents comments about how proud they are of their children.  If you are interested in this check it out here at the Teaching Oasis.

Parent Brag Sheet

(Look under "Other Documents")