Homework
The best thing you can do to help your child is give them some time to read, to create, to build and to be themselves
Aside from our Home Reading, I will not be assigning regular homework. Why not?
Students are busy. Family, friends, music, sports and other hobbies and interests are important in building a person. 1500 minutes at school each week should be enough.
The jury is out on what impact homework has on learning - if any. Finland, which regularly scores at the top of international student testing, has moved away from homework and even has students spend less time at school and more doing other activities. Giving the mind a chance to rest and reflect is seen as important to Finland students scoring so high.
Still, there will be things students can and should work on at home. These include...
Uncompleted work from class (time will be given, but we might run out of time, students may miss some days, etc)
Bonus tasks that students wish to tackle (for example, Problem of the Week in Math)
Tasks that require some extra work or practice at home - presentations, projects, etc.
Finally, some students may struggle with certain concepts or might wish to complete extra work to cement an idea. I will list some resources in our google classroom as we work through them, but here are some great websites to visit if you feel like working on your own through a topic.
Language
ReadWorks.org - a great site we will use in class as well. Kids can check out the class library to read non-fiction at home
Math
Gizmos - I will post relevant gizmos each unit, but students can use their accounts created at school to explore on their own as well
Khan Academy(5) - this links right to the 5th grade section of their program. Follow along! (note: this is set at an American curriculum, but most things align fairly well. Feel free to jump back or forwards through the grades)
Geogebra - a great site students can explore aspects of geometry and algebra - work on shapes, perimeter, areas, etc. Also a great place to get virtual manipulatives for work at home
Other
Khan Academy Coding - learn various aspects of computer programming
Scratch - my favourite coding site from MIT