I struggle mightily with homework. On one hand it is kids' time, and they should do with it as they will. On the other it is an opportunity for extra practice, connecting families (homework help), and good study habits. I dislike the daily homework seeing the legwork on my end to be significant compared to the payoff.
What I started doing 2 years ago was a current event. Kids select an article of their choice to read and summarize. It shows comprehension while also focusing on distilling ideas from a larger article into 4-5 key points. It ties into reading standards in a variety of ways while leaving little legwork on my end, and allowing kids choice.
This year I am going to tweak it a bit. Instead of an open ended free for all we will have a structured context to pick from within. For example, we started with Government this year in order to highlight the 2012 presidential election. The month of October will be focused on election stories- who is running, what they are saying, etc. it will provide some interesting context to go through facts/opinions and persuasive writing also. Later we will highlight other important events/milestones/themes. We will likely do something around community needs in December. January we will come back to government as the inauguration/government start up begin. February might be for finding something you love- animals, video games, etc.
I'm pretty excited about it. The evolution to something meaningful is going on, which is pretty great.
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